Integrative Phenotyping Specialist (Contractor)

Character Biosciences is a precision medicine company pioneering targeted therapies for polygenic diseases, with an initial focus on ophthalmology. At the core of Character Bio’s approach is a world-class, patient data platform that integrates genomics with deep, longitudinal clinical and imaging data. Character’s interdisciplinary team - spanning human genetics, clinical science, data science & engineering, and drug discovery and development - leverages the company’s platform to uncover genetic drivers of disease progression, advance novel therapeutics, and define patient stratification strategies to enhance clinical success. The company is currently advancing two programs in Dry Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) with additional programs in earlier stages of discovery research.

As an Integrative Phenotyping Specialist at Character Biosciences, you will play a key role in shaping how we leverage Character Bio’s unique longitudinal real-world dataset to advance our drug discovery platform. Your priority will be to use clinically meaningful endpoints to develop disease progression phenotypes that can be integrated with genetic sequencing to inform target identification, as well as clinical trial design and strategy. 

This is a temporary functional role with the potential to transition into a permanent position. Reporting to the Head of Data Science and working in close collaboration with clinicians and geneticists, you will have ample opportunity to bring innovative ideas to life and contribute meaningfully to cross-functional initiatives.

Key Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with the Clinical and Data Science teams to characterize disease trajectories, identify patient subgroups, and develop and validate clinical endpoints using Character Bio’s longitudinal real-world dataset.

• Design, build, and productionize into our infrastructure pipelines novel longitudinal phenotypes that align with clinical endpoints to support our genetic discovery platform.

• Communicate complex findings clearly and effectively to internal and external stakeholders through visualizations, reports, and presentations.

Skills and Qualifications:

• PhD (or Master’s degree with 5+ years of experience) in Statistics, Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Biomedical Informatics, or a related quantitative field, with a minimum of 2 years of relevant experience.

• Strong foundational knowledge of study design principles, including confounding, bias, and causal inference.

• Expertise in statistical modeling techniques for longitudinal data, including mixed-effects models, latent growth modeling, survival analysis, multilevel modeling, and repeated measures regression/ANOVA.

• Demonstrated ability to execute data science projects across the full lifecycle—from problem definition and data processing to modeling and operationalization, including with modular code, pipeline orchestration, version control, unit and integration testing, and data validation

• Proficiency in Python or R, including familiarity with modern data science libraries (e.g., pandas, scikit-learn, PyTorch, TensorFlow).

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with an emphasis on using data to drive actionable insights.

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to convey technical concepts to non-expert audiences.

• Effective collaboration skills, with experience working cross-functionally in team-oriented environments.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working with ophthalmology data, particularly segmentation models or machine/deep learning-derived features.

• Experience with deep learning models for longitudinal data, such as Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks.