National-Scale Genomics Infrastructure Lead

Garvan’s Data Science Platform (DSP) brings together computational experts working in system administration/DevOps, software engineering, production bioinformatics and computational biology. The DSP works closely with teams across Australia, establishing national infrastructure for genomics and medical research. Our teams collaborate with leading genomics researchers at Garvan and beyond, providing computational expertise, building infrastructure and processing large datasets

THE OPPORTUNITY

The National Genomics Infrastructure Lead is responsible for establishing and leading a team contributing to the development of Australia’s national genomics infrastructure. Garvan is a key contributor to the national genomics infrastructure strategy and implementation. The incumbent will lead technical development, collaborate with teams across the country and work closely with researchers nationally to ensure systems are meeting their needs. While the scope of work is national, the focus for the team is on the set of tools/systems that are required by Garvan researchers. All software developed by the team will be open-source and designed using best-practice to ensure widespread use by the scientific community and rapid. This is a 2 year term contract with possibility to extend.

SNAPSHOT OF BENEFITS

• Generous salary packaging to save you income tax on your wages thereby boosting your monthly take home pay (max. $15,900 general expenses + $2,650 meals/accom)

• Ample opportunities for on-going training and development

• Stimulating, diverse and highly international research environment

• Flexible work arrangements e.g. start / finish times

• 18 weeks paid parental leave for both parents including paid superannuation

• A range of additional leave types to meet your personal needs including cultural leave, conference leave, community service and study leave

• Discounted Health Insurance

• Lifestyle discounts with our community partners

WHAT YOU WILL DO

The key responsibilities include but not limited to:

• Recruitment and management of a team of engineers to develop and deploy components of Australia’s national genomics infrastructure.

• Ongoing communication with national stakeholders, contributing to the national genomic infrastructure strategy and identifying and coordinating with collaborators across the country to work on federated systems.

• Seeking out researchers who would benefit from using national genomics infrastructure, supporting them to gain access and working iteratively to improve tools/systems to meet their needs.

• Ensuring the projects the team takes on are relevant to Garvan and supporting Garvan researchers. Contributing to applications for grant funding to support the team in collaboration with DSP head and other team leads.

• Developing a culture of rigorous best-practices, open-source software engineering and close collaboration between the software team and other groups across the institute

ABOUT YOU

• PhD in computational biology, computer science or a related field or equivalent experience

• Experience building infrastructure for genomic data sharing, processing or management at a national scale

• Significant experience with one or more prominent languages such as Python

• Strong experience with cloud computing

• Understanding of how to build performant, decoupled, testable, maintainable code.

• Keen interest in open source and desire to learn new technologies and understand / enhance large existing code bases.

• Ability to prioritize across multiple simultaneous projects and keep stakeholders in the loop.

• Excellent ability to gather and refine specifications and requirements based on technical needs, and to communicate regularly with stakeholders to test prototype software

• Confidence to design and execute software development projects based on incomplete specifications

• Demonstrated experience in managing a team

• Build and maintain a strong functional team through effective recruitment, coaching, team building

• A capable technical leader who sees management of a talented engineering team as an opportunity to increase impact, rather than a chore

• Comfortable communicating with both technical and non-technical individuals at across the organisation

• Experience analysing multi-omic data (desirable)

• Proven track record attracting competitive grant funding (desirable)

ABOUT GARVAN

Garvan Institute of Medical Research is an independent Medical Research Institute (MRI) in Sydney, delivering scientific and clinical impact on a global basis and in partnership with organisations that share our vision. We are proud to be one of Australia’s largest and most highly regarded MRI’s.

Our vision is global leadership in discoveries to impact and our enduring purpose is to impact human health, by harnessing information encoded in our genome.

We seek to see our world-class discovery research achieve life-changing impacts, not only for individual patients with rare diseases, but for the many thousands affected by complex, common disease.

Garvan promotes a diverse workplace and is committed to the principles of equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging. We are always looking for culture ‘add’, not culture ‘fit’ and are building diverse teams with great sets of complementary styles and skills to help deliver our important work effectively.

HOW TO APPLY

To apply for this position, please submit your application with a CV and cover letter as one document, stating why you are interested in this role. We are reviewing applications as they are received. If you think you’re the right person for this role, we’d love to hear how your capabilities, achievements and experience set you apart.