Staff Bioinformatics Scientist
Abbott Laboratories · Foster City · $114,000–$228,000 (stated in the posting)
Abbott is a global healthcare leader that helps people live more fully at all stages of life. Our portfolio of life-changing technologies spans the spectrum of healthcare, with leading businesses and products in diagnostics, medical devices, nutritionals and branded generic medicines. Our 122,000 colleagues serve people in more than 160 countries.
Working at Abbott
At Abbott, you can do work that matters, grow, and learn, care for yourself and your family, be your true self, and live a full life. You’ll also have access to:
- Career development with an international company where you can grow the career you dream of.
- Employees can qualify for free medical coverage in our Health Investment Plan (HIP) PPO medical plan in the next calendar year.
- An excellent retirement savings plan with a high employer contribution.
- Tuition reimbursement, the Freedom 2 Save student debt program, and FreeU education benefit - an affordable and convenient path to getting a bachelor’s degree.
- A company recognized as a great place to work in dozens of countries worldwide and named one of the most admired companies in the world by Fortune.
- A company that is recognized as one of the best big companies to work for as well as the best place to work for diversity, working mothers, female executives, and scientists.
Position Overview
This position works out of our La Jolla, CA location in the Abbott Cancer Diagnostics division.
The Staff Bioinformatics Scientist is largely self-driven, working in collaboration with others on one or more projects which are extremely complex in scope. The Staff Bioinformatics Scientist is responsible for successfully leading the planning and execution of projects. This position involves independently making detailed observations, analyzing data that is extremely complex and technical, critically analyzing the data and providing supporting scientific rationale as needed, as well as providing insights into the future direction of the project for successful outcomes. The Staff Bioinformatics Scientist helps develop the timeline and plan for new assignments/projects. As a technical expert with deep knowledge and thorough understanding of the science, the Staff Bioinformatics Scientist provides technical guidance and mentorship to junior scientists in the Research and Development group. Working in a team setting, the Staff Bioinformatics Scientist will be involved in Research and Development projects serving as a technical lead and subject matter expert in exploring, researching, and testing new technologies or providing and developing ideas and concepts to improve or develop processes that add value or establish innovative methods and processes for product development towards development of diagnostic assay products.
Essential Duties
Include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Conduct comprehensive analyses within several product or technology areas and identify problems and discrepancies.
- Independently plan and develop algorithms.
- Independently develop, plan, and analyze results of experiments within several product or technology areas within defined timelines; effectively present and clearly communicate findings at data meetings, group meetings and project team meetings to inform and enable project progression.
- Critically analyze research/experimental data, interpret the results, and provide insights into the next steps and the direction of the project for successful outcomes.
- Contribute towards the development of timeline and plan for new assignments/study/projects.
- Provide technical guidance to junior scientists in project teams.
- Manage bench-generated data and bioinformatics outputs within high performance computing (HPC) or cloud computing environment.
- Determine, utilize, and apply methods or technologies effectively and provide ideas for new techniques, when appropriate.
- Maintain knowledge of technological industry developments that could assist in completion of an assignment or aid in the development of new processes or procedures.
- Provide scientific rationale when analyzing and interpreting data and provide technical input and participate in decisions affecting project planning and experimental design.
- Prepare and provide information and data for scientific abstracts/conferences/project meetings/publication.
- Contribute to the intellectual property portfolio by implementing innovative and creative ideas to solve problems or improve on current methods.
- Generate, document, and communicate development plans for critical aspects of a project.
- Develop research plans and experimental outlines to write experimental protocols and perform laboratory experiments.
- Prepare detailed technical procedures, protocols, and reports.
- Evaluate impact of nonconforming data to product or process.
- Identify and address trends in study data.
- Prepare and approve written reports.
- Lead identification of areas for process improvements.
- Maintain lab notebook in a clear, complete, and consistent manner, following all legal, ISO, and QSR requirements.
- Prepare reports and documentation providing highly technical analysis or summarization of results, outcomes, next steps, and the future direction of the project to functional leader, technical teams/groups, or project teams.
- Present results and defend scientific ideas and findings at data meetings, group meetings, project team meetings, and/or departmental meetings; critically evaluate scientific data for its merits; lead meetings and help provide directions as a subject matter expert.
- Demonstrate success in technical proficiency/knowledge, scientific creativity and rigor, collaboration with others, and independent thought and ability to provide insights and defend scientific ideas.
- Work on problems of extremely complex scope in which analysis of data requires an evaluation of intangible variables.
- Exercise independent judgment in developing methods, techniques, and evaluation criteria for obtaining solutions.
- Work on assignments individually and with project team members to meet department and project objectives.
- Work within project timeframes with successful outcomes on multiple projects and key responsibilities.
- Act as bioinformatics leader for one or more projects that are complex in scope.
- Act as subject matter expert in core team and/or cross-functional meetings.
- Exercise discretion and independent judgement within broadly defined practices and policies in: selecting methods, techniques and evaluation criteria for obtaining and interpreting results; analyzing data and presenting findings in a professional and knowledgeable manner.
- Promote an open, collaborative environment built on trust to foster positive teamwork.
- Plan, recommend, and lead activities that account for prioritization of organizational and department goals.
- Train, guide and mentor research associates and junior level scientists.
- Organize, present, and convey complex problems or issues.
- Communicate clearly and frequently with all levels of the organization; including team members, project team members (core and extended), functional managers, clinical lab, and other stakeholders.
- Create high quality presentations that effectively communicate and tie into a cohesive story the project status and/or experimental results.
- Apply strength in performing complex analyses and the ability to present data and recommendations to a variety of audiences throughout an organization.
- Apply qualitative and analytical skills with strong attention to detail.
- Ability to effectively work on several varied projects at one time, with frequent changing priorities.
- Demonstrate excellent analytical, problem solving and decision-making skills.
- Apply sound technical knowledge and ability gained through experience and/or learning.
- Apply previous knowledge and outcomes to new and valuable problems (able to make predictions based on a deep understanding of the fundamental nature of the inputs into a decision or action).
- Uphold company mission and values through accountability, innovation, integrity, quality, and teamwork.
- Support and comply with the company’s Quality Management System policies and procedures.
- Maintain regular and reliable attendance.
- Ability to act with an inclusion mindset and model these behaviors for the organization.
- Ability to work on a mobile device, tablet, or in front of a computer screen and/or perform typing for approximately 90% of a typical working day.
- Ability to work on a computer and phone simultaneously.
- Ability to travel 10% of working time away from work location, may include overnight/weekend travel.
Minimum Qualifications
- Ph.D. in bioinformatics, computational biology, computer science, mathematics, or related field; or Master’s degree in bioinformatics, computational biology, computer science, mathematics, or related field plus 4 years of experience in lieu of a Ph.D.; or Bachelor’s degree in bioinformatics, computational biology, computer science, mathematics, or related field plus 6 years of experience in lieu of Ph.D.
- 8+ years of industry or academia experience in bioinformatics.
- 6+ years of experience in medical device/IVD, biotech, life science or pharmaceutical industry.
- Demonstrated experience in developing statistical and quantitative methods.
- Deep knowledge and thorough understanding of molecular biology and/or biochemistry and/or next-generation sequencing (NGS) and genomics.
- Demonstrated expertise in product/assay research, design, or development.
- Basic computer skills to include Internet navigation, Email usage, and word processing. Proficient in Microsoft Office to include Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
- Demonstrated ability to perform the Essential Duties of the position with or without accommodation.
Preferred Qualifications
- 10+ years of experience in medical device/IVD, biotech, life science or pharmaceutical industry.
- Experience developing and applying advanced linear and non-linear statistical learning methods on complex datasets, including but not limited to supervised and unsupervised machine techniques.
- Familiarity with applying AI techniques such as deep learning, neural networks, LLM in bioinformatics or similar on high dimensional data.
- Previous experience as a project lead for a team of scientists.
- 2+ years of direct people leadership and management experience.
- Experience in a pharmaceutical or biotech manufacturing environment, preferably in a GMP and/or ISO environment.
- Previous industry experience in product development or technical support.
- Experience with genomic databases and software.
- Background containing a substantial amount of bioinformatics work including troubleshooting.
- Previous experience working in a molecular diagnostics/clinical laboratory setting.
The base pay for this position is $114,000.00 – $228,000.00. In specific locations, the pay range may vary from the range posted.