Senior Consultant - Bioinformatician

Job Title: Senior Bioinformatician

GCL: D2

Introduction to role

Are you ready to tackle some of the most challenging informatics problems in the drug discovery clinical trial phase? Join us as a Senior Bioinformatician and be part of a team that is redefining healthcare. Your work will directly impact millions of patients by advancing the standard of drug discovery through data processing, analysis, and algorithm development. Collaborate with informaticians, data scientists, and engineers to deliver ground breaking solutions that drive scientific insights and improve the quality of candidate drugs. Are you up for the challenge?

Accountabilities

• Collaborate with scientific colleagues across AstraZeneca to ensure informatics and advanced analytics solutions meet R&D needs.
• Develop and deliver informatics solutions using agile methodologies, including pipelining approaches and algorithm development.
• Contribute to multi-omics drug projects with downstream analysis and data analytics.
• Create, benchmark, and deploy scalable data workflows for genome assembly, variant calling, annotation, and more.
• Implement CI/CD practices for pipeline development across cloud-based and HPC environments.
• Apply cloud computing platforms like AWS for pipeline execution and data storage.
• Explore opportunities to apply AI & ML in informatics.
• Engage with external peers and software providers to apply the latest methods to business problems.
• Work closely with data scientists and platform teams to deliver scientific insights.
• Collaborate with informatics colleagues in our Global Innovation and Technology Centre.

Essential Skills/Experience

• Masters/PhD (or equivalent) in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, AI/ML, Genomics, Systems Biology, Biomedical Informatics, or related field with a demonstrable record of informatics and Image analysis delivery in a biopharmaceutical setting.
• Strong coding and software engineering skills such as Python, R, Scripting, Nextflow.
• Over 6 years of experience in Image analysis/bioinformatics, with a focus on Image/NGS data analysis and Nextflow (DSL2) pipeline development.
• Proficiency in cloud platforms preferably AWS (e.g. S3, EC2, Batch, EBS, EFS etc) and containerization tools (Docker, Singularity).
• Experience with workflow management tools and CI/CD practices in Image analysis and bioinformatics (Git, GitHub, GitLab), HPC in AWS.
• Experience in working with any multi-omics analysis (Transcriptomics, single cell and CRISPR etc ) or Image data (DICOM, WSI etc) analysis.
• Experience working with any Omics tools and databases such as NCBI, PubMED, UCSC genome databrowser, bedtools, samtools, Picard or imaging relevant tools such as CellProfiler, HALO, VisioPharm particularly in digital pathology and biomarker research.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with team members and partners to achieve objectives.

Desirable Skills/Experience

• Experience in Omics or Imaging data analysis in a Biopharmaceutical setting.
• Knowledge of Dockers, Kubernetes for container orchestration.
• Experience with other workflow management systems, such as (e.g. Apache Airflow, Nextflow, Cromwell, AWS StepFunctions).
• Familiarity with web-based bioinformatics tools (e.g., RShiny, Jupyter).
• Experience with working in GxP-validated environments.
• Experience administering and optimising a HPC job scheduler (e.g. SLURM).
• Experience with configuration automation and infrastructure as code (e.g. Ansible, Hashicorp Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, Amazon Cloud Developer Kit).
• Experience deploying infrastructure and code to public cloud, especially AWS.

When we put unexpected teams in the same room, we unleash bold thinking with the power to inspire life-changing medicines. In-person working gives us the platform we need to connect, work at pace and challenge perceptions. That's why we work, on average, a minimum of three days per week from the office. But that doesn't mean we're not flexible. We balance the expectation of being in the office while respecting individual flexibility. Join us in our unique and ambitious world.

At AstraZeneca, we are driven by a shared purpose to push the boundaries of science and develop life-changing medicines. Our innovative approach combines ground breaking science with leading digital technology platforms to empower our teams to perform at their best. We foster an environment where you can explore new solutions and experiment with groundbreaking technology. With countless opportunities for learning and growth, you'll be part of a diverse team that works multi-functionally to make a meaningful impact on patients' lives.

Ready to make a difference? Apply now to join our team as a Senior Bioinformatician!

AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity. We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills. We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be. We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics. We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorisation and employment eligibility verification requirements.