Senior Software Engineer

The Garvan Institute of Medical Research brings together world leading scientists and clinicians, collaborating locally and globally, to advance our understanding of disease, particularly cancer, autoimmunity and genetic disorders. Garvan is a global leader in fundamental biomedical research and its translation. Our mission is to make discoveries that will improve health for all.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Garvan's Data Science Platform (DSP) brings together computational experts working in system administration, DevOps, software engineering, production bioinformatics and computational biology. The DSP works closely with various collaborators at Garvan, across Australia and internationally. The Senior (or Mid-senior) Software Engineer will be based in the National Scale Genomics Infrastructure team and be involved in the design, implementation, integration, testing, documentation, deployment and support of software and systems that enable genomics research. A particular focus for this role will involve building a data portal and analytics platform for single cell and spatial transcriptomics as part of the AllClear program, funded through a National Breast Cancer Foundation's (NBCF) Collaborative Research Accelerator Grant, which studies breast cancer metastasis and relapse mechanisms. This is a 3-year fixed-term contract with salary dependent on candidate skills and experience.

SNAPSHOT OF BENEFITS

• Generous salary packaging to save you income tax on your wages thereby boosting your monthly take home pay (max. $15,900 general expenses + $2,650 meals/accom)

• Ample opportunities for on-going training and development

• Stimulating, diverse and highly international research environment

• Flexible work arrangements e.g. start / finish times

• 18 weeks paid parental leave for both parents including paid superannuation

• A range of additional leave types to meet your personal needs including cultural leave, conference leave, community service and study leave

• Discounted Health Insurance

• Lifestyle discounts with our community partners

WHAT YOU WILL DO

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

This is a senior/mid-level position. Key responsibilities include:

• Engage stakeholders to help understand their needs and provide expert advice on software design and development for research projects.

• Deploy, test and evaluate existing cloud-based software solutions.

• Design, implement, integrate, test, document, deploy and support novel software solutions when required.

• Perform deployments (DevOps) tasks both for our projects and for additional open-source tools needed at Garvan.

• Help support our scientific partners progressively taking ownership for relevant projects and areas of expertise.

• Help improve the team's developer tooling, practices and automations.

• Contribute code and features to open-source bioinformatics tools.

• Mentor junior developers and help the whole team grow professionally by sharing their own special interests and findings.

ABOUT YOU

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED

This is a senior/mid-level position. Key skills and experience include:

• A PhD in Computer Science/Bioinformatics or a related field, or equivalent experience

• Excellent knowledge of one or more programming languages and frameworks such as JavaScript/TypeScript, React, Python, R, Bash

• Strong experience with cloud computing

• Experience in developing, documenting, testing and using cloud infrastructure

• Full-stack development experience (or a keen interest in learning the missing half stack)

• Knowledge of SQL and experience developing applications that use relational databases

• Experience with GNU/Linux system administration and/or with DevOps on public cloud services

• Experience with widespread developer tools and understanding of their purpose (e.g. version control, linting, auto-formatting)

• Excellent written and oral communication, representation and interpersonal skills essential for interaction with internal and external stakeholders

Desirable:

• Experience with Big Data tools and frameworks (e.g. Spark, Elasticsearch and Redis)

• Experience with Docker and Kubernetes

• Experience with configuration as code (e.g. Terraform)

• Experience with software (e.g. gnomAD, hail, seqr, REDCap) and standards (SAM, CRAM, VCF, GA4GH standards) used in genomics research

• Experience setting up and maintaining CI/CD

• Knowledge of NoSQL databases

• Experience with columnar storage file format (e.g. Parquet)

ABOUT GARVAN

Garvan Institute of Medical Research is an independent Medical Research Institute (MRI) in Sydney, delivering scientific and clinical impact on a global basis and in partnership with organisations that share our vision. We are proud to be one of Australia's largest and most highly regarded MRI's.

Our vision is global leadership in discoveries to impact and our enduring purpose is to impact human health, by harnessing information encoded in our genome.

We seek to see our world-class discovery research achieve life-changing impacts, not only for individual patients with rare diseases, but for the many thousands affected by complex, common disease.

Garvan promotes a diverse workplace and is committed to the principles of equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging. We are always looking for culture 'add', not culture 'fit' and are building diverse teams with great sets of complementary styles and skills to help deliver our important work effectively.

HOW TO APPLY

To apply for this position, please submit your application with a CV and cover letter as one document, stating why you are interested in this role. We are reviewing applications as they are received. If you think you're the right person for this role, we'd love to hear how your capabilities, achievements and experience set you apart. Only applicants with full working rights in Australia are eligible to apply for this role.