Computational Biologist

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Job Profile

Job Title

Department

Compensation Range

The Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.

Posting End Date

Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the Posting End Date.

Job End Date

The anticipated start date for this position is July 15 , 2026. The term is for one year with the possibility of extension.

In your application please include (1) a cover letter, and (2) a CV or resume.
 

At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career. 

Job Summary
A full-time position is open immediately for a computational biologist to work with our interdisciplinary team of researchers and software developers at BC Cancer. The successful applicant will participate in developing, improving, maintaining, and using bioinformatics tools for a high-throughput processing pipeline. We seek candidates with a strong background in R and Python who is comfortable on the command-line, with specific skills in not only scripting but software engineering as well. Given the inherently cooperative nature of the research environment we also seek a worker capable of working both in teams and alone. Experience with research software development best practices is also desirable.

The role is ideally suited for a creative individual with a passion for software development and data analysis within an academic setting. More info on the research we conduct can be found here:  http://molonc.bccrc.ca/

Organizational Status
Working in a research software development team, independently and reporting to the senior programmer in Molecular Oncology or designate, and in conjunction with investigators within the BC Cancer, UBC and internationally. The incumbent is expected to work independently.

Work Performed

• Responsible for design and running scientific analyses on biologic next-generation-sequencing and other ‘omics data
• Contribute to generation of research results from ‘omics data for publications and grants
• Develop, improve, and maintain high-throughput data processing workflows specifically in R and Python, and other languages as required
• Lead consultations with lab members and users on programmatic and research needs
• Familiar with utilizing and understanding common machine learning techniques
• Supervise the work of junior developers/co-op students and undergraduate trainees, which includes assigning work, providing guidance and answering questions.
• Is responsible for the work of the junior developers/co-op students
• Provide support and training to users of any software that is developed
• Develop, improve and maintain solutions for data management and storage in consultation with other developers 

• Devise or modify solutions to complex problems associated with high throughput data analysis, considering computational capacity, operating time, and the form of desired results 
• Research, evaluate and adopt new technologies, algorithms, and platforms as required 
• Produce thorough but concise written documentation of algorithms, workflows, SOPs and other processes and procedures as required
• Consult, communicate, and work with other researchers in a friendly and professional manner with the goal of maintaining an effective and pleasant workplace  
• Employ software engineering best practices to develop, test, deploy new improvements and features to existing software 
• Perform other related duties as required​
  

Consequence of Error/Judgement
Accountable for the generation of quality analysis software and developing maintainable computing infrastructure that will have significant research progress implications.

Supervision Received
Supervision from Principal Investigator or designate. Results reviewed for achievement of overall objectives.

Supervision Given
May help to supervise undergraduate trainees and/or junior software developers.

Minimum Qualifications
Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline. Minimum of two years of related experience, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.

- Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one’s own

- Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one’s own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion

Preferred Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree or technical diploma in computer science or information technology, or another relevant field, preferred
• Proven expertise with R and Python mandatory
• Proven expertise in software engineering best practices, including version control, issue tracking and quality assurance
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Comfortable working in a Unix environment, including experience with shell scripting and common command-line tools
• Demonstrated interpersonal skills including the ability to work effectively with others in a team environment
• Demonstrated ability to efficiently organize assignments and establish priorities
• Experience in HPC and cloud computing in an academic setting