Senior Bioinformatics Analyst (12-month Contract)
About Us
At DNAstack, our mission is to power precision medicine by building software that breaks down barriers to responsible biomedical data sharing, discovery, and analysis. We develop cutting-edge technologies and industry standards to help researchers and clinicians analyze sequencing data and make faster, more accurate diagnoses. Our platform supports national and international networks tackling rare disease, cancer, infectious disease, and more. We’re a small but mighty startup team working at the intersection of bioinformatics, cloud computing, and open science.
The Role
We’re looking for an experienced Senior Bioinformatics Analyst to join our bioinformatics team on a full-time, 12-month contract. You’ll be responsible for developing, optimizing, and maintaining genomic pipelines, managing data submissions, ensuring quality control, and supporting releases—all as part of a project-specific role.
You’ll work both independently and directly with our research and clinical partners, applying your knowledge of -omics analysis and genomics best practices to deliver reproducible, scalable pipelines. You’ll contribute to key project initiatives, develop impactful tools, and help drive its success.
The ASAP CRN Cloud
The ASAP Collaborative Research Network (CRN) is the first of its kind to foster an environment that facilitates the rapid and free exchange of scientific ideas to spark new discoveries for Parkinson’s disease (PD). The CRN is an international, multidisciplinary, and multi-institutional network of collaborating investigators working to address high-priority science questions. Teams are awarded grant funding through request for applications in partnership with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF).
The ASAP CRN Cloud is a data-sharing tool co-developed by DNAstack which gives researchers the tools to explore data all the way down to the individual cell level. It facilitates the sharing of data from over 30 research teams focused on PD functional genomics, neuro-immune interactions, and circuitry and brain-body interactions.
What You’ll Be Doing
- Collaborate with partners in academia and industry to develop pipelines for handling various types of -omics data (e.g., genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, etc.).
- Develop and maintain metadata schema to ensure consistency across various datasets and proper integration.
- Facilitate and manage a highly collaborative data submission process with partners, ensuring metadata consistency and data harmonization across submissions.
- Perform testing and validation for software releases in accordance with established governance and quality assurance processes.
- Design and build reproducible, scalable, and well-documented pipelines using WDL, Docker, and cloud-based infrastructure (e.g., GCP, AWS, Azure).
- Evaluate, compare, and validate analysis methods using best-in-class tools (e.g., GATK, bcftools, samtools, Seurat, Scanpy, scvi-tools, etc.).
- Communicate complex bioinformatics results and methodologies clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Stay current with new methods and standards in genomics and participate in open-source initiatives.
What We’re Looking For
- PhD in bioinformatics, computational biology, biostatistics, or a related field—or equivalent industry experience.
- Strong research background in neuroscience or neurological disorders.
- 4+ years of hands-on experience building and running NGS analysis pipelines.
- Fiercely self-motivated—you don’t wait for perfect specs, you ask good questions and get moving, taking ownership of complex problems and driving them to resolution.
- Excellent troubleshooting skills—you’re the person others come to when things break.
- Versatile and adaptable—you’re comfortable wearing multiple hats, juggling priorities, and switching contexts or projects quickly without losing momentum.
- Strong programming and scripting skills (Python preferred; R or Java also valued).
- Strong command-line and shell experience.
- Experience with workflow languages like WDL, CWL, Nextflow, or Snakemake.
- Experience with containerization tools such as Docker or Singularity to ensure reproducible and portable pipelines.
- Familiarity with cloud computing (GCP, AWS, or Azure) or HPC environments.
- Strong grasp of genomics file formats and tools (e.g., BAM, VCF, FASTQ).
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to bridge technical and scientific domains and collaborate effectively with external stakeholders, partners, and cross-functional teams.
- Strong understanding and experience investigating the genetics of disease.
- Strong exploratory data analysis and visualization skills for complex datasets, with a keen ability to translate observations into actionable recommendations.
Why Join DNAstack?
- Work on meaningful projects that help improve patient outcomes.
- Be part of a collaborative, mission-driven team in a growing startup.
- Flexible hours and remote-friendly culture.
- Competitive salary.
- Opportunity to contribute to open science and global data-sharing efforts.
Let’s Talk
If this role sounds like a fit—and you’re excited to help shape the future of genomic medicine—we’d love to hear from you. Send us your resume and a short note about why you’re interested.