Senior Software Developer / Bioinformatician (Genome Annotation and Analysis)

Applications are invited for a Senior Software Developer/Bioinformatician to join the Laboratory of Dr Swarbreck in the Research Faculty of the Earlham Institute, based in Norwich, UK. 

The role: 

Global initiatives such as the Earth Biogenome project are contributing to a rapid increase in genomic resources. Annotation of genes and regulatory regions in eukaryotic genomes remains challenging, even within large global initiatives such as the Earth Biogenome the quality of genome annotation will not be uniform, with variation both across and within taxonomic clades. This post will focus on developing novel computational tools and pipelines for large scale annotation and analysis of genes and other genomic features across a diverse range of species including plants, mammals, fish and protists.

A key focus will be continuing the development of REAT - EI's Robust and Extendable eukaryotic Annotation Toolkit (https://github.com/EI-CoreBioinformatics/reat), building new workflows to consolidate, validate, and resolve differences in gene annotations across clades, subspecies, and haplotypes.

The role will develop scalable and robust methods to annotate eukaryotic species with large, repeat rich and polyploid genomes, utilising data from cutting edge sequencing technologies including PacBio IsoSeq and Nanopore.

As part of the Core Bioinformatics Group you will:
• Design and develop accurate and scalable computational pipelines for the annotation and analysis of complex eukaryotic genomes
• Continue development of existing pipelines / annotation tools
• Develop tools to support pan-genome analysis and annotation of alternative haplotypes
• Develop approaches for integrating data from a variety of sequencing technologies
• With the core bioinformatics team produce high-quality, evidence-based genome annotation of protein-coding, lncRNA and pseudogenes
• Utilise modern workflow management and containerisation systems to automate complex workflows. 
• Keep up to date with modern software engineering best practices, data analysis best practices and new technologies.
• Mentor junior bioinformaticians, interns and visitors.
• Collaborate with EI faculty groups and UK and international partners on large-scale projects including DToL.

The ideal candidate:

The successful candidate will possess a PhD or equivalent experience in computational biology, bioinformatics, computer science or a similar subject. They will also have a strong background and interest in developing computational tools, pipelines and algorithms.

Candidates should possess a high level of skill and demonstrable experience of building tools and pipelines in Python, along with R and Bash scripting. Familiarity with cluster compute environments and workflow management systems e.g. snakemake, cromwell is also essential.

The ideal candidate will also be highly collaborative and have demonstrable experience of successfully managing their time to deliver analyses and input into multiple projects

The Senior Software Developer and Bioinformatician post is available at the SC5 level for candidates with demonstrable ability to lead projects and develop novel computational methods and pipelines. Applications will also be considered for the SC6 Bioinformatician role. 

Additional information:

Salary on appointment will be within the range £35,300 to £43,750 per annum depending on qualifications and experience for the SC6 level role, and £43,550 to £54,900 per annum for candidates who meet the SC5 level criteria.  This is a full-time post for a contract of 3 years. 

We will consider applications from candidates who can be based at and attend our offices on a regular basis but would like to work remotely at other times. 

For further information and details of how to apply, please visit our website http://jobs.earlham.ac.uk/ or contact the Human Resources team on 01603 450814 or nbi.recruitment@nbi.ac.uk quoting reference 1004529 

As a Disability Confident employer, we guarantee to offer an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for this vacancy. 

The closing date for applications will be 10 October 2023. However, we may close the advert early if a sufficient number of applications are received.