(Senior) Scientist, Bioinformatics

Variant Bio is a Seattle-based biotechnology company leveraging the power of human genetic diversity to develop life-saving therapies. To achieve this goal, we are studying the genes of people who are outliers for medically relevant traits, then translating insights from this research into the discovery and development of new therapeutics.

Variant Bio has raised $130mm to support the rapid advancement of the company's research and development work. Our investors include Lux Capital, Alta Partners, General Catalyst, SoftBank Vision Fund, Cercano Management and Casdin Capital, among others. Our growing team of geneticists, medical researchers, biologists, and drug hunters is working to advance multiple projects through target validation, lead optimization, and into the clinic, in relentless pursuit of our goal to bring life-saving therapies to patients.

Ethics is at the foundation of everything we do at Variant Bio. Our genomic research studies are co-designed with local partners around the world. In addition, we are committed to sharing tangible benefits with research partners and communities through our unique Benefit-sharing Program and Affordable Medicines Pledge.

Variant Bio is an equal opportunity employer that guarantees a work environment that respects and values diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

Job Description

We are looking for a bioinformatician with expertise developing and running computational pipelines to study human genomic and transcriptomic data with a focus on immune-related genes. The ideal candidate should have a strong foundation in method development and an interest in researching, developing, testing and adapting cutting-edge methods for sequence data analysis. The candidate we are seeking will have experience analyzing large-scale whole-genome and transcriptome data sets and ideally some hands-on experience with AWS. The candidate will be part of a team of computational biologists with expertise spanning bioinformatics, statistical genetics, population genomics, and functional genomics. We encourage candidates who are passionate about increasing the inclusion of underrepresented populations in genomic research to apply, as this is a core mission of Variant Bio. It is strongly preferred that this role is based in Seattle, WA and in the office a minimum of 3 days a week.

Responsibilities

• Research, test, develop and run bioinformatics methods to analyze genomic and transcriptomic sequencing data, with a focus on genotyping highly similar alleles in immune-related loci.
• Develop benchmarking methods for genotyping of highly difficult and complex regions in the human genome using short-read and long-read sequencing data.
• Process and analyze whole genome sequencing data from diverse populations, including variant calling, imputation, and extensive quality control.
• Process and analyze bulk and single-cell transcriptomic data, including expression quantification, TCR/BCR profiling, and differential expression analysis.
• Run, maintain, and add to bioinformatics methods and workflows for analysis of large-scale data using AWS cloud compute.
• Work with software engineers and cloud architects to automate workflows and build robust infrastructure.
• Disseminate results internally and externally and contribute to presentations and publications.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. degree with 2+ years, Masters degree with 6+ years, or Bachelors degree with 8+ years of relevant work experience in bioinformatics, computational biology, statistics, computer science, or a related field. Experience in immunology is a plus.
• Experience processing large-scale WGS data using standard bioinformatics software packages, such as FASTQC, GATK, samtools, bedtools, bcftools, etc. Experience working with RNA-seq data and relevant software packages is a plus.
• Strong programming skills and experience with high performance computing; proficiency in bash, Python, R; experience programming in Java/C++ preferred.
• Software development experience using e.g. git and Docker.
• Experience with cloud-based computing on AWS; experience with Nextflow on AWS Batch a plus.
• Familiarity programmatically interfacing with relational databases such as MySQL a plus.
• Good working knowledge of public human genomic resources, such as the 1000 Genomes Project, the Human Genome Diversity Project, gnomAD, the UK Biobank and other biobanks.
• Publication record in the field of genomics a plus.
• Independent, creative, detail-oriented, and a critical thinker.

What We Offer

• Opportunity to be part of a well funded and highly innovative biotech.
• Competitive, industry leading salary, and comprehensive benefits including medical, dental, vision, short and long term disability and life insurance.
• 401(k) plan through Fidelity that includes up to 3% employer match and flexible investment options.
• Flexible paid time off.
• Choice of public transportation (Orca Card) provided by the company or subsidized parking.
• Centrally located Eastlake, Seattle location in a new Alexandria building with modern facilities.

Anticipated annual base salary for this position is $125,000 - $160,000 plus up to 10-15% bonus and an options package, for total compensation of up to $138,750 - $184,500, plus equity options.

The annual salary range above is based on the responsibilities and qualifications listed above. Individual salary will depend on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Don't meet every single requirement but are excited to join the Variant Bio team? If your past experience doesn't align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may still be the right candidate for this or other roles.