Computational Biologist

Boston, MA
Full Time
Experienced

Arcaea is building a new ingredient toolset for the beauty and personal care industry - one rooted in biotechnology with the aim of delivering radical performance and unparalleled sustainability that will also present new opportunities for storytelling. This role will be critical to shaping and driving Arcaea’s ethos around a “biology-first” future for the industry. Our mission is to create the most consequential personal care ingredients and brands of this century. 

 

We are building an organization where technology and storytelling coexist in a symbiotic relationship. To accomplish our vision we will need to be really good at two things: consumer engagement and technical innovation - and they will need to work together in concert. 

 

As our Computational Biologist will collaborate with Arcaea scientists and external groups, as well as internal cross-functional groups to play a critical role in driving forward Arcaea’s R&D efforts with a mix of computational biology, statistics, and software engineering.  You’ll perform a variety of technical duties from helping our biologists and chemists develop assays to analyzing complex datasets to accelerate product development or generate new product leads.  Familiarity with microbiome studies and genomic datasets as well as general biostatistics are important to this role.  Understanding how to develop and maintain pipelines, automated workflows, and databases is a plus and will become part of your responsibilities.  


 

RESPONSIBILITIES

 

  • Work with Sr. Computational Biologist to provide technical expertise toward design and execution of various biotech programs and projects
  • Summarize and visualize complex data sets to inform experimental design and product development
  • Design and execute computationally driven experiments to generate new product development strategies
  • Summarize and display complex data into actionable metrics to inform experimental design/next steps
  • Create and troubleshoot (custom) software in order to enable high throughput analysis pipelines
  • Create pipelines for analyzing complex datasets to feed into databases
  • Develop or implement internal tools for biologists and chemists
  • Help build biological databases for machine learning projects 
  • Run software and scripts while keeping excellent records
  • Analyze large metagenomic and microbiome related data sets
  • Improve models for molecular interactions and binding activity
  • Communicate technical information to internal teams and/or external parties in the form of oral and written correspondence, presentations, and reports
  • Work with cross-functional teams to implement new technologies into new product development pipelines
  • Stay current on scientific literature (new methods, data analysis tools, etc) and cutting edge technology 
  • Ideate on and develop novel solutions that help Arcaea achieve its vision: Limitless Expression
  • See your work translate to real world applications rapidly as you create new opportunities for Arcaea
  • Do “whatever it takes” to get the job done and work effectively and efficiently including on a tight deadline without drama or ego. We are a dynamic startup whose priorities may need to shift.

 

QUALIFICATIONS / SKILLS: 

 

  • Masters degree +3 years of experience or PhD in bioinformatics, biotechnology, biochemistry, computer science, engineering, mathematics, or a biology related field
  • Experience/proven ability to program/script in Python, R, and Bash/Unix shell
  • Practices agile software development and loves to write elegant code (please provide a link to any publicly available code when applying)
  • Experience installing, maintaining, and operating open-source bioinformatics software
  • Proficient in public scientific databases (ie, PubMed) relevant to our work and genomic resource databases (RefSeq, UniProt, Ensembl, NCBI, etc). 
  • Experience with a cloud service provider and related infrastructure/services – ideally AWS
  • Experience with DNA/RNA sequencing technologies and data
  • Experience analyzing microbiome data sets, WGS or 16S as well as qPCR based assays
  • Familiarity with major tools used for NGS analysis as well as databases
  • Familiarity with workflow tools and software development tools (Git, Docker, Nextflow/bash/snakemake/airflow, etc).
  • Ability to work independently as well as on cross functional teams in a fast-paced environment
  • Passionate about keeping up with technology and new developments
  • Effective communicator, can explain complex science in layman terms

EXPERIENCE IN THE FOLLOWING A PLUS: 

  • Implementing or managing relational databases (SQL)
  • Molecular modeling tools like PyMol, Rosetta, etc.
  • NGS data from Illumina and MinIon sequencing machines, (de novo) genome and hybrid assembly, and genome annotation
  • Research on host-microbiome interactions
  • Knowledge of human skin biology and immunology
  • Systems biology and metabolic modeling

 

We are committed to diversity, equality, and inclusion in all its practices. It is the policy of Arcaea to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants.

 

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