Director Of Analytical Systems And Data Insights

Karius is a venture-backed life science startup focused on transforming how infectious diseases are diagnosed. Combining Next-Generation Sequencing and proprietary data analysis, we can identify over 1,000 human pathogens from a single blood sample with a typical turnaround time of one business day. By unlocking the information present in microbial cell-free DNA, we're helping doctors quickly solve their most challenging cases, with a future vision of accelerating clinical trials, discovering new microbes, and reducing patient suffering worldwide.

The Karius Engineering team is responsible for the development and operation of the Karius technology stack that delivers the company's products and services to its customers. A critical component of this stack is the analytical software systems that enable advanced data analysis in various domains such as genomics, metagenomics, personalized medicine, predictive models for diseases, genomic surveillance, epidemiological investigations, clinical trials, health economics, and commercial and corporate performance management. This role will have a significant impact on shaping how Karius leverages data and Data analytics tools as powerful assets to overcome unique challenges and serve more patients. 

Karius' core mission is to conquer infectious diseases through innovations around genomic sequencing and machine learning. The company's platform already delivers unprecedented insight into the microbial landscape, providing clinicians with a comprehensive test capable of identifying more than a thousand pathogens directly from blood. Through this journey, we have repeatedly innovated beyond state-of-the-art to deliver critical insights from our new data type - microbial cell-free DNA. You, as a future leader of one of Karius' most innovative teams, will be able to impact and drive critical elements in our core technology platform and will be able to see significant implications of this work on patients suffering from infectious diseases and beyond.

Reports to: Vice President of Engineering

Location:  Redwood City, CA or Hybrid

   Collaborate with various functions across the company (including engineering, data science, bioinformatics, lab operation, product and business stakeholders) to develop and execute the technical roadmap for the data analytics domain. 

   Develop and execute a strategic roadmap for Analytical Systems and Data Insights aligned with the organization's goals and objectives. 

   Responsible for the development and operation of bioinformatics pipelines for various Karius products and research projects.

   Drive a sustaining competitive advantage in the industry by accelerating the R&D activities with internal tools and processes. Aim at open sourcing these tools to establish Karius as an innovative industry leader. 

   Develop and introduce the right Generative AI tools to enhance the company's capabilities in data analytics and accelerate the business across all domains.

   Drive the long-term vision of data governance. Collaborate with the security and privacy functions to establish and enforce data governance policies, standards, and best practices to ensure data quality, security, and compliance.

   Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness and impact of Analytical Systems and Data Insights on business outcomes.

   Lead, coach and develop a team of talented bioinformatics and Data engineers. 

   Stay abreast of emerging technologies, trends, and best practices in analytics and Data management to continuously enhance the organization's analytical capabilities.

Karius is operating at the edge of what is now known to be possible in infectious disease diagnostics. With that, comes a wave of new and incredible challenges and opportunities. To deliver on that value, you will be tapping into advanced technologies, architecting, and innovating where the current out-of-the-box solutions simply don't suffice the complexity and scale we operate at. If you enjoy building "Swiss-watch,"-like systems while needing to improvise often to address new and unique challenges, you will have fun in our team. Moreover, you will get to see how much your work impacts people's lives. 

Travel: n/a

Subject to extended sitting and standing periods, vision to monitor, and moderate noise levels. Work is performed in an office environment.

Primarily, show us you have successfully built and operated several complex, high-quality, regulated, reliable, and scalable Analytical Systems. Convince us you have the technical, people, and organizational skills to understand and translate the complex data analysis needs of the diagnostic industry into one-of-a-kind software systems that become a sustaining competitive advantage for Karius.

   M.S. or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Statistics, Biomedical Engineering, Genetics, or a related engineering or science field. 

   10+ years of industry experience leading the development and operation of Analytical software systems including bioinformatics and other health data analysis pipelines for both R&D and production operation use cases.  

   3+ years of experience leading teams of scientists and/or engineers in multi-disciplinary cross-functional environments.

   Proficient in data analytics stacks; primarily Python, PySpark, workflow engines such as Nextflow/Airflow/Argo, and platforms such as Databricks/Snowflake. 

   Deep understanding of the concepts and proficiency in the tools and frameworks for genomic data analysis. 

   Hands-on experience with Cloud software development and operations approach; primarily using tools and technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes, and Cloud services to run data analytics jobs such as AWS/Azure Batch.

   Hands-on experience and successful development and deployment of enterprise-level data models, dictionaries, ontologies, and taxonomies. 

   General understanding of machine learning and Generative AI concepts and familiarity with the latest tools. 

   Excellent communication skills, with a proven ability to present complex ideas clearly and effectively to leading scientific and engineering communities and, within the industry setting, leadership teams.

   We would like to add a humble, curious, and mentor to our team. At the Karius engineering team, we highly value domain expertise, drive for innovation, desire to collaborate, being open to learning and unlearning, and passion for solving hard problems with a meaningful impact on the world. A sense of ownership and personal/group accountability allows us to be a productive and high-performing team. If you share our vision we would like to have you on board.

At Karius, we value a diverse and inclusive workplace and provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and employees and are committed to honor and invest in the full diversity of people, in our hiring, recruiting and development of employees across the Company.  All qualified applicants for employment are encouraged to apply and will be considered without regard to an individual's race, color, sex, gender identity and gender expression (including transgender individuals who are transitioning, have transitioned, or are perceived to be transitioning to the gender with which they identify), religion, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, physical or mental disability, medical condition, family care status, marital status, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, genetic information, military or veteran status, or any other basis protected by federal, state or local laws. If you are unable to submit your application due to a disability, please contact us at recruiting@kariusdx.com and we will accommodate qualified individuals with disabilities.

$212,000 - $318,000 a year