Associate Director – Bioinformatics

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Illinois.

📋 Description

• Oversee and coordinate a team of 4-6 bioinformatics software engineers, focusing on workload planning, mentorship, and career advancement.

• Facilitate daily standup meetings and take ownership of the team's sprint planning; collaboratively write, refine, and prioritize tickets with product and scientific stakeholders.

• Conduct regular one-on-one meetings and performance discussions; cultivate a team culture that emphasizes technical excellence, collaboration, and ongoing improvement.

• Lead discussions on software design and architecture; author and review technical design documents.

• Provide thorough and constructive peer reviews across the team's codebase.

• Promote the adoption of engineering best practices within the team, including standards for workflows, testing, and documentation.

• Act as a technical escalation point; able to directly contribute to code or design when necessary.

• Serve as the main day-to-day contact between the bioinformatics engineering team and product, software engineering, and clinical science partners.

• Interpret scientific requirements into actionable engineering tasks; effectively communicate engineering constraints back to scientific and product stakeholders in a clear and proactive manner.

• Represent the team in planning, roadmap, and prioritization discussions with leadership.

• Supervise the design, development, and maintenance of bioinformatics pipelines operating in a clinical production environment.

• Ensure the delivery of high-quality, validated software through rigorous testing, quality assurance processes, and documentation practices suitable for a regulated clinical context.

⛳️ Requirements

• A minimum of 5 years of experience in bioinformatics software engineering or a closely related field, including at least 2 years in a team lead, technical lead, or people management role.

• Proficient in Python engineering skills — encompassing not just scripting, but also production-quality software development.

• Familiarity with next-generation sequencing data and clinical or research genomics pipelines.

• Proven capability to lead technical design and deliver meaningful code reviews, even when not the primary developer.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; comfortable engaging with both scientific and engineering audiences.

🏝️ Benefits

• Incentive compensation.

• Restricted stock units.

• Medical and other benefits depending on the position.