Bioinformatics Engineer II

WHO WE ARE

Parse Biosciences, a QIAGEN company, is a global life sciences company whose mission is to accelerate progress in human health and scientific research. Empowering researchers to perform single cell sequencing with unprecedented scale and ease, its pioneering approach has enabled groundbreaking discoveries in cancer treatment, tissue repair, stem cell therapy, kidney and liver disease, brain development, and the immune system.

Founded based on a transformative technology invented at the University of Washington, Seattle-based Parse has raised over $100 million and is used by over 3,000 labs across the world. Our growing portfolio of products includes Evercode Whole Transcriptome, Evercode TCR, BCR, Gene Capture, and Trailmaker, a software tool for data analysis.

THE PRODUCT

We’ve built the most popular, freely available cloud-based platform for single cell RNA sequencing data analysis - Trailmaker. Trailmaker allows anyone to easily turn their single cell datasets into meaningful biology. With >1200 monthly active users from top tier research institutions across the world, we’re offering a rare opportunity to join our team and change the world by building tools that help to improve human health.

The user requirements for Trailmaker dictate a unique set of technical challenges. Handling big data files, running custom data processing pipelines, on-the-fly computation, and providing interactive data visualisations with millions of data points are just some of the challenges our team is busy with!

THE POSITION

As a Bioinformatics Engineer II within the Trailmaker development team, you will play a key role in guiding the technical direction of the platform while contributing hands-on across the full stack. You’ll collaborate closely with other engineers to architect and build new features that drive user engagement. This is a highly collaborative environment with no division between backend, frontend or testing roles - each engineer contributes to any part of the codebase and is responsible for the entire development process from work planning, through implementation and writing tests to completing the feature.

YOU CAN EXPECT

• An agile, diverse and multidisciplinary team.
• A supportive, inclusive and transparent working environment where teammates learn from and help each other all the time.
• A place to look at things differently, challenge and offer solutions.
• A small team environment where you will have the opportunity to make a significant impact by actively driving change in technology, processes and culture.
• A fast-paced environment of continuous improvement, optimised for impact.

IN THIS POSITION, YOU WILL

This position is for full time, 100% remote work. We would expect you to:

• Always put the user first.
• Design, prototype, develop, and test new computational pipelines and visualizations for single cell data analysis in Trailmaker.
• Continuously iterate and improve existing single cell pipelines and features.
• Receive and incorporate feedback from customers and colleagues.
• Perform troubleshooting of customer analyses.
• Keep up-to-date on the rapidly evolving field of single cell genomics and relay observations of new methods, benchmarking studies, etc. to the team.
• Experiment, test, try, fail and learn continuously.
• Think like an owner, and take pride in your work.
• Help and mentor teammates.

FOR THIS POSITION, WE LOOK FOR

• Someone excited about building tools that will be used by thousands of single cell researchers.
• A track record of designing, building and improving data analysis software that solves user problems.
• A degree in bioinformatics (or similar) and 3+ total years of experience working in bioinformatics engineer roles. Additional experience (5+ years) is necessary to be appointed at Bioinformatics Engineer II level.
• Fluent in Python and R.
• Practical experience of working with open source single cell data analysis tools and packages, including Scanpy and Seurat.
• Competency working with container-based cloud applications, ideally on AWS.
• Strong data visualization skills.
• Significant experience in conducting code reviews and providing feedback to others.
• Experience and desire to work as part of a close-knit team.
• Experience using version control systems such as Git/GitHub is preferred.
• Proficiency building pipelines with Nextflow or similar frameworks is preferred.
• Experience of integrating AI tools into development workflows is preferred.
• Knowledge of and/or interest in web development is preferred.
• Experience working with Bash is preferred.

JOB CONDITIONS

• This position is home office based and will require a reliable internet connection and suitable workspace to fulfill job duties effectively. Laptop and any other essential technical/home office equipment will be provided.
• Regular communication and collaboration with team members will occur virtually through Zoom meetings, Slack instant messaging/huddles, and email.