Lead Bioinformatician - Biomarker and Therapeutic Target Discovery

Title
Lead Bioinformatician – Biomarker & Therapeutic Target Discovery

Position Summary

We’re looking for a lead bioinformatician to drive early-phase biomarker and therapeutic-target discovery across oncology, organ-health, and women’s-health programs. You’ll partner with other bioinformaticians, clinical AI scientists, wet-lab scientists, clinicians, and data engineers to design and implement robust multi-omics analyses, produce clear data visualizations, and translate findings into actionable insights that shape our next-generation assays and therapeutics.

Primary Responsibilities

• Develop & enhance analytic pipelines for DNA-, RNA-, and epigenomic sequencing (short- and long-read) covering somatic, germline, expression, and methylation data.

• Integrate heterogeneous datasets (bulk & single-cell genomics, proteomics, clinical metadata) to reveal biomarkers and novel drug-target hypotheses.

• Prototype and benchmark new algorithms (e.g., variant calling, expression deconvolution, pathway/network analysis); establish gold-standard datasets and QC metrics.

• Automate workflows to improve speed, reproducibility, and scalability in a regulated environment; document and release production-quality code.

• Collaborate with R&D stakeholders to refine requirements, interpret results, and iterate on study designs across oncology, transplant/organ health, and women’s reproductive health.

• Generate clear reports and visualizations for internal review, manuscripts, regulatory submissions, and conference presentations.

• Contribute to external partnerships and cross-functional research projects; stay current on emerging bioinformatic methods and public datasets.
   

Required Skills & Experience

• PhD in bioinformatics, computational biology, genomics, statistics, or related field and 5+ years relevant post-graduate experience (or MS with 7+ years).

• Proven track record managing complex multi-omics projects from concept to insight in an industrial or core-facility setting.

• Deep experience with Illumina NGS data; familiarity with long-read (PacBio, ONT) or single-cell platforms is advantageous.

• Strong proficiency in Python and/or R; comfortable in a UNIX/Linux environment and with workflow languages (e.g., Nextflow, Snakemake, WDL).

• Solid grasp of statistics, experimental design, and best practices for reproducible research (Git, notebooks).

• Demonstrated ability to distill complex results for interdisciplinary teams; excellent written and verbal communication skills.

• Experience with SQL or similar query languages for large-scale data retrieval is a plus.

• Exposure to immune-repertoire or immuno-oncology datasets is welcomed but not required; broader oncology, organ-health, or women’s-health experience highly valued.
   

Nice to Have

• Knowledge of cloud computing environments (AWS, GCP, Azure, or DNAnexus) and distributed data-processing frameworks.

• Familiarity with public resources such as TCGA, GTEx, UK Biobank, ENCODE, NCBI dbGaP, or large-scale consortia datasets relevant to organ and women’s health.

• Experience contributing to regulatory filings or clinical assay development.

#LI-TH1 #LI-Remote

OUR OPPORTUNITY

Natera™ is a global leader in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) testing, dedicated to oncology, women’s health, and organ health. Our aim is to make personalized genetic testing and diagnostics part of the standard of care to protect health and enable earlier and more targeted interventions that lead to longer, healthier lives.

The Natera team consists of highly dedicated statisticians, geneticists, doctors, laboratory scientists, business professionals, software engineers and many other professionals from world-class institutions, who care deeply for our work and each other. When you join Natera, you’ll work hard and grow quickly. Working alongside the elite of the industry, you’ll be stretched and challenged, and take pride in being part of a company that is changing the landscape of genetic disease management.

WHAT WE OFFER

Competitive Benefits - Employee benefits include comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life and disability plans for eligible employees and their dependents. Additionally, Natera employees and their immediate families receive free testing in addition to fertility care benefits. Other benefits include pregnancy and baby bonding leave, 401k benefits, commuter benefits and much more. We also offer a generous employee referral program!

For more information, visit www.natera.com.

Natera is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to ensuring a diverse and inclusive workplace environment, and welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives. Inclusive collaboration benefits our employees, our community and our patients, and is critical to our mission of changing the management of disease worldwide.

All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply, and will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, age, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with applicable laws.

If you are based in California, we encourage you to read this important information for California residents. 

Link: https://www.natera.com/notice-of-data-collection-california-residents/

Please be advised that Natera will reach out to candidates with a @natera.com email domain ONLY. Email communications from all other domain names are not from Natera or its employees and are fraudulent. Natera does not request interviews via text messages and does not ask for personal information until a candidate has engaged with the company and has spoken to a recruiter and the hiring team. Natera takes cyber crimes seriously, and will collaborate with law enforcement authorities to prosecute any related cyber crimes.

For more information:
- BBB announcement on job scams 
- FBI Cyber Crime resource page