Senior Data Engineer
Job description
Lead the scaling of Orakl Oncology's omics data within the Computational Biology team, designing data representations, storage layouts and access patterns so computational biologists and research engineers can build on the data. The role works with the Data & Infra team to make model training and experimentation fast and reproducible.
At a glance
- Work mode
- Remote
What you'll do
- Design and build the omics data architecture, defining with the data engineering team what lives in a database, what stays in columnar files on S3, and how it fits the company's stack
- Guarantee reliable ingestion so every new batch of processed omics data (variant calls, expression, CNV, QC metrics, sample and sequencing tracking) lands reliably and consistently with the data model definition
- Build and maintain the omics data model, maintaining a curated reference layer as the single source of truth, keeping model-ready datasets separate, and tracking lineage between the two
- Build and evolve the access layer so scientists and models get what they need for client contracts, strategic partnerships and internal R&D without writing joins or asking someone
- Assess how processed omics data is stored and served today, propose solutions to scale it, and drive their implementation
- Work hand in hand with the data engineering team to keep omics infrastructure consistent with the rest of the company's stack
- Report to the Head of Computational Biology
What we're looking for
- 4+ years as a data engineer, with ingestion pipelines you built running in production
- Master's in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Engineering (or equivalent experience)
- Hands-on experience setting up and maintaining CI/CD for data pipelines and code libraries
- Strong data modeling experience: designed schemas that handle evolving identifiers, versioning and lineage
- Deep relational database expertise: schema design, partitioning, indexing, query plans, migrations on a live database
- Deep cloud infrastructure skills: AWS (S3 and core services), infrastructure as code (Terraform or equivalent) and containers (Docker), with sound judgment on what belongs in a database and what stays in files
- Strong experience in Python and SQL; comfortable with Git, CI and the command line
- Can propose architecture choices, defend them and converge with engineering peers
- A real drive to understand omics, including how data is processed, to step in for the Senior Bioinformatician when they are away
Nice to have
- Omics experience: loaded VCF/MAF files or expression matrices; familiarity with Nextflow / nf-core pipelines
- Columnar formats and engines (Parquet, Arrow, DuckDB) and an orchestrator (Dagster, Airflow, Prefect)
- Metabase or another BI layer on top of a relational database
- LIMS or biobank sample-tracking integration
- A tech-bio background, or prior work next to bioinformaticians
Your team
Computational Biology
A collaborative, multidisciplinary team of clinicians, biologists, and engineers working towards a common mission.
Benefits
Role: be the engineer behind the data backbone of a distinctive oncology discovery platform, designing how one of the world's rarest PDO multi-omics and functional datasets is stored, served and scaled
Team: join a collaborative, multidisciplinary team alongside clinicians, biologists, and engineers towards a common mission
- Mission: work in a cutting-edge environment, on the forefront of cancer research
- Impact: take ownership of a critical piece of an early-stage, fast-moving company, with the opportunity to shape it
How to get hired
- 1Hiring Manager Call: Getting to know each other, aligning on expectations and context
- 2Technical Deep Dive: A deep conversation on your experience with production data pipelines, data modeling, and scientific data processing
- 3Technical Case: A system-design and problem-solving exercise representative of the real wet-lab data challenges you'll face at Orakl
- 4Reference Call: A conversation with one or two people you've worked with closely
- 5Founder Interview: A final discussion with our founders on vision, culture fit, and mutual ambitions
Apply
Direct apply at Orakl Oncology
Opens the job posting at Orakl Oncology
About Orakl Oncology
Orakl Oncology combines cutting-edge biology and AI to build insight platforms with the world's largest cohort of patient tumor avatars. These avatars fuel an AI-powered predictive engine that helps anticipate clinical trial outcomes, validate therapies, and uncover new drug candidates. The company generates multimodal, real-world data and collaborates with top hospitals, research institutes, and pharmaceutical companies worldwide.
Mission
To bring more effective treatments to patients who need them and to make drug development smarter, faster, and more personalized.
Key facts
- Oncology drug development / biotech
- Fewer than 5% of new cancer drugs succeed in clinical trials
- Combines cutting-edge biology and AI
- World's largest cohort of patient tumor avatars
- Backed by leading investors
- Fast-growing, mission-driven startup at the intersection of science and technology
- Every organoid grown in the lab is sequenced (WGS and RNA-seq)