Computational/Bioinformatics Scientist

Computational / Bioinformatics Scientist
Location: San Diego, CA

Job Type: Full-Time

Salary Range: $174,000 - $185,000

Position Overview

We are building a high-throughput data analysis pipeline from first principles, on a short timeline, with a small team.

This role is the connective tissue between biology and algorithm. You will support chemistry and assay teams with rigorous quantitative analysis, build first-principles simulations that let us study instrument behavior before reliable data exists, and own the downstream data processing stack.

This is not a research position. You will write production-intent code, ship working tools, and own specific technical tracks end-to-end. The team is small, the problems are novel, and the timeline is real.

Why Join Us:

• Own the biology-facing analytics track: image-based signal extraction, sequential signal quality analysis, experiment design support, and quantitative troubleshooting for teams

• Build first-principles simulations of instrument behavior — signal distributions, optical models, and system dynamics — to study system behavior before reliable instrument data is available

• Design and implement the downstream data processing stack: signal diversity handling structured output formats

• Characterize data quality across difficult signal patterns and edge cases that stress classification and quality scoring models

• Define quantitative metrics and diagnostics to guide chemistry and hardware teams toward theoretically achievable performance limits

• Collaborate with the ML engineer on labeled datasets, ground truth construction, and calibration inputs for quality scoring and signal classification model development

Qualifications and Education:

• MS and 13+ years or PhD and 10+ years of experience in computational biology, bioinformatics, engineering, statistics, physics, computer science, or a closely related field; MSc considered with a strong industry track record in product-facing roles

• Must demonstrated experience shipping quantitative analysis tools or pipelines in a product development context — you have owned a technical track, shipped something, and moved it from prototype through to use

• Must have strong programming skills in Python (numpy, scipy, pandas/polars, scikit-learn) or R (tidyverse, Bioconductor); fluency in both is a plus

• Fluent working with multi-modal scientific data: tabular, image, and tensor formats — not just one

• Familiarity with high-through put data pipelines and computational biology and bioinformatics methods: biological data analysis, QC metrics, and quantitative modeling

• Prior direct experience interfacing with wet lab, chemistry, or assay teams — you know how to translate between biological experiment and quantitative model

Strongly Preferred & Nice To Have:

• Experience at a life sciences instrument or measurement technology company.

• First-principles mechanistic simulation experience: PDEs, ODEs, stochastic systems, or optical/imaging physics — the ability to build a predictive model from governing equations before empirical data is available is directly useful here

• Demonstrated software projects: public GitHub contributions, open-source tools, or comparable evidence of engineering quality and technical ownership

• Comfort using AI-assisted development tools to move faster — this team expects everyone to use the best available toolsImage analysis experience: microscopy, spatial data, or feature extraction from 2D/3D image stacks

• Experience with combinatorial design problems: code design, edit distance constraints, composition bounds

• Familiarity with on-instrument or embedded compute constraints (understanding what "runs in real time on hardware" means in practice)

We are an equal opportunity employer. We thrive on diversity and collaboration.