Bioinformatics Scientist (Remote)

Remote, US

Us

Seed Health is a microbiome science company pioneering innovations in probiotics and living medicines to impact human and planetary health. Our scientific board comprises leading scientists, researchers, and clinicians across the fields of microbiology, immunology, bioinformatics, dermatology, oral health, vaginal health, gastroenterology, mental health, pediatrics, and nutrition. 

Consumer innovations are commercialized under Seed® with a mission to bring much-needed precision, efficacy, education and perspective-shifting science communication to the global category of probiotics. Our efforts to set a new standard in probiotics, microbial innovation and translational communication have earned various accolades, including Fast Company's World Changing Ideas in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022, and TIME's Best Inventions 2018.

We focus on categories where microbial innovations and microbiome-related products will disrupt and capture global market share in the coming years (e.g. oral care, skin care, infant health, etc.). We have built a strong foundation with breakthrough research and strong intellectual property, and believe there is a substantial opportunity to emerge as an innovative product line, backed by the most rigorous science.

Who You Are 

You are passionate about diving into the world of microbiome research and possess a strong background in bioinformatics, genomics, and cloud computing. In your current role, you are responsible for building, running, and maintaining cutting-edge pipelines for sparse, multivariable, high-dimensional (such as metagenomics and potentially microbiome metabolomics) on cloud infrastructure like AWS. You have experience with creating automated workflows with provenance, ensuring accuracy, and efficiency in your work. Ideally, you have familiarity with clinical trial or human cohort datasets, including metadata, regulatory compliance, and cohort designs.

Teachers and mentors would describe you as a detail-oriented, knowledgeable individual who can quickly adapt to new technologies and methodologies in bioinformatics and genomics research. Your ability to communicate effectively across diverse teams with varying expertise allows you to seamlessly collaborate with colleagues, such as the director of bioinformatics, microbiome statisticians, and the larger discovery and R&D team. You consistently deliver high-quality work on time and are always eager to learn and implement new techniques to address your team's needs.

You thrive in collaborative, dynamic, and fast-paced environments, where you work closely with a multidisciplinary team of scientists and researchers. You proactively explore new tools and techniques to optimize workflows, automate processes, and enhance the analysis of microbiome data. Your communication skills allow you to effectively convey complex bioinformatics concepts to team members and partners with diverse backgrounds, fostering collaboration and the exchange of knowledge. You are eager to take on new challenges and contribute to the success of a data-driven, human-centric company.

What You’ll Do

• Deploy and use bioinformatic processing pipelines for the integration and analysis of human clinical and microbiome (metagenomic) data, including short read sequencing data.
• Develop, optimize, and maintain cloud-based infrastructure for running microbiome-specific bioinformatics pipelines (e.g., metagenomics, metabolomics) on cloud compute platforms (e.g., AWS), following best practices for automation, reproducibility, and provenance tracking.
• Collaborate with the Director of Bioinformatics, the Microbiome Biostatistician, and the larger Discovery and RnD team to identify data analysis needs and execute on them, ensuring accurate and efficient data wrangling, data science, and exploratory microbiome analysis.
• Use bioinformatics tools for precision pre/probiotic design and microbial comparative genomics.
• Implement and apply machine learning techniques and advanced multivariate statistical methods for responder/non-responder analysis, nested clinical trial design, and other relevant tasks.
• Contribute to the development of novel microbial therapies through the analysis of clinical trial data.
• Participate in the creation of clinical trial analysis documentation, academic papers, and other relevant materials.
• Integrate and analyze human microbiome data from various sources and body sites, including clinical trials or human cohorts
• Continuously learn and implement new bioinformatics and genomics methodologies to address your team's needs
• Communicate bioinformatics analysis results effectively with academic and industry partners around the globe.

Required Experience

• PhD + Postdoc or industry experience in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, or a related quantitative field.
• Experience in the analysis of high-dimensional (multi-omics) datasets and associated multivariate statistics or modeling.
• Solid knowledge of bioinformatics workflows in a Unix/Linux environment.
• Proficiency in at least one programming language used in bioinformatics/data analysis (e.g., R, Python).
• Ability to work in dynamic and fast-paced environments with tight deadlines.
• Ability to learn and adapt workflows to in-house as well as novel techniques for microbiome characterization and analysis
• Experience using cloud computing / HPC platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP) for bioinformatics workflows and data analysis.

What we'd like to see in addition

• Hands-on experience working with metagenomic shotgun short-read datasets (deeply sequenced; 50M+ read pairs).
• Familiarity with popular microbiome pipelines such as Biobakery, SHOGUN, Pathoscope, etc.
• Knowledge of machine learning techniques and their applications in bioinformatics.
• Deep knowledge of algorithms and computer science concepts as applicable to the microbiome
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to explain complex concepts to a diverse audience.

The annual pay range for this full-time position is $120k-$160k + equity + benefits across all US locations (this position is 100% remote-US). Our pay ranges are guided by discipline, level and experience required. Within the range, individual pay may vary based on additional factors, including: your specific location, desired skills/ technical competency, relevant experience and advanced education/ training.Benefits include: Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, AD&D, LTD, Mental Wellness, EAP, Wellness Stipend + 401(k) match.

Seed is an equal opportunity employer. For us, diversity isn’t an HR metric—it is the result of billions of years of evolution; it’s our nature. To serve our community inclusively means to cultivate a relative abundance of perspectives, backgrounds, geographies, and experiences. Like in biology, each role and its function is key to the productivity, sustainability, and resilience of our ecosystem.

Seed Health does not accept unsolicited resumes from individual recruiters or third party recruiting agencies in response to job postings. No fee will be paid to third parties who submit unsolicited candidates directly to our hiring managers or any employee of the Seed team. All candidates must be submitted via our Applicant Tracking System by approved Seed Health vendors who have been requested to make a submission by our Talent Acquisition team for a specific job opening.