Interim Head of Bioinformatics & Software

Job Description

Job title: Interim Head of Bioinformatics & Software

Reports to: Chief Scientific Officer

Location: Manchester (hybrid role)

Contract Type: 6 months fixed-term contract

Salary & Benefits: Competitive Salary + Benefits Package

About Yourgene Health:

Yourgene Health is a leading integrated technologies and services business, enabling the delivery of genomic medicine. The group works in partnership with global leaders in DNA technology to advance diagnostic science.

Yourgene primarily develops, manufactures, and commercialises simple and accurate molecular diagnostic solutions, for reproductive health, precision medicine and infectious diseases. The Groups flagship in vitro diagnostic products include non -invasive prenatal tests (NIPT) for Downs Syndrome and other genetic disorders, Cystic Fibrosis screening tests, invasive rapid aneuploidy tests and DPYD genotyping.

Yourgene has a range of innovative DNA sample preparation platforms, powered by Ranger® Technology, the Yourgene LightBench® and Yourgene QS250, ideal for cell free DNA applications in NIPT and oncology including liquid biopsy.

Yourgene also has a global laboratory service network equipped to be a full life-cycle partner for clinical, research and pharmaceutical organisations to support partners at the preclinical, clinical, and post market stage to develop, manufacture, obtain regulatory approval and commercialise new products and services. In addition, Yourgene offers and NIPT and high throughput Covid testing service.

Yourgene Health is headquartered in Manchester, UK with facilities in Taipei, Singapore, the US and Canada.

Our Culture:

Yourgene is a growing, vibrant and exciting place to work, we are looking for committed driven individuals to be part of our next growth journey. Our culture is described by our employees as collegiate, friendly, professional, innovative, open and fast paced. We have nay social and well-being initiatives run by our Social Huddle that keep our sense of community alive during challenging times that the pandemic has thrown our way. At Yourgene we focus on putting values led programmes in place to ensure that we can attract, retain and develop our people. We want our people to have a career with Yourgene and we ensure that they are recognised and rewarded for their achievements and commitment, everyone plays a critical role in our growth journey.

Description of role:

Yourgene Health, part of Novacyt Group are recruiting for an Interim Head of Bioinformatics & Software on a 6 months fixed-term contract. The Interim Head of Bioinformatics and Software Development leads an international team which develop custom bioinformatics pipelines, analysis algorithms and turns them into regulated software products for the analysis of genetic data to sit alongside out portfolio of molecular diagnostic assays. Highly organised and delivery focused, the post holder will have responsibility for the management of team leaders and the delivery of projects. Northwest-based with hybrid working options.

Overall responsibility:

The Interim Head of Bioinformatics & Software will provide people, project management and technical leadership in implementing and optimising data analysis pipelines, algorithms, systems and the development of software that is provided to our customers to support our portfolio of molecular diagnostic tests. You will lead multiple geographically dispersed teams to deliver software products, applications, tools and algorithms, aligned with product and technology strategies and compliant with medical quality and regulatory requirements.

Key areas of responsibility:

• Lead Bioinformatics & Software Development teams to deliver comprehensively tested software products, applications, tools and algorithms that are carefully aligned with product requirements and Yourgene Technology Strategy.
• Provide technical leadership and a high level of bioinformatics and software expertise in development projects.
• Lead the design and execution of studies to refine existing algorithms and to develop novel ones, to convert genomic and other bioinformatic data into actionable clinical information.
• Work collaboratively with development scientists, supporting them with bioinformatics analysis capabilities to create products, services and processes meeting the User Needs of Yourgene Health’s customers.
• Deliver to communicated Technology Strategy; support the continuing development and evolution of Technology Strategy within Yourgene.
• Foster an integrated global team sharing best practice and drawing on skills as most appropriate for the project tasks at hand.
• Ensure that all software development activities take place according to agreed core processes and using agreed practices and tools (including for example: project/task management, code development, debugging, code review, build and test, and version, configuration and release control).
• Lead efforts to continuously improve processes, practices and tools applied in the team.
• Ensure that the software applications, tools and algorithms embedded in Yourgene Health CE-IVD products are developed in a manner consistent with IEC 62304 and other appropriate regulatory standards.
• Management of the lifecycle of Software applications, products and tools.
• Liaise with external software development partners as required, ensuring that processes employed are compatible with Yourgene software development requirements, and that external development outputs are correctly integrated into software applications, products and tools..
• As required, manage interfaces with external development contractors to help ensure that implementations of computational algorithms and processes are optimised for Yourgene Health products and services.

Qualifications, Skills and Abilities:

• Further degree (or equivalent) in Software Engineering, Computer Science, Scientific Computing or similar, with 10+ years of relevant experience of software application development, testing and documentation practice.
• Proven track record in software project management with proven ability to lead technical teams to deliver complex software development projects on time and to budget.
• Demonstrated experience of applying the fundamental elements and workflow of software development processes to predefined timescales, highly preferably in a commercial environment.
• Experience of working in both Agile and waterfall software development lifecycle approaches, with appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of both within a regulated development environment.
• A background in bioinformatics, data science, machine learning or similar is advantageous but not essential.
• Direct experience of working with Next Generation Sequencing data sets is preferable but not essential.
• Must have worked in a regulated software development environment, either in the Healthcare sector or alternatively in regulated environments in other industry sectors with a knowledge of transferrable processes.
• Preferably with experience of operating ISO/IEC 62304 and 62366-compliant software development processes, or to software development regulatory standards in other industry sectors.
• Experience of current project management and software version control tools and practices (using GitLab, Wrike or similar tools).
• Highly organised completer-finisher who can embed a culture of timely delivery. Enthusiasm, drive, thoroughness, diligence and a willingness to take personal responsibility to ensure that projects are successful.
• Experienced leader who can manage teams remotely and in person, and develop the skills of the team.
• Familiarity with a range of scripting and application programming languages (e.g. Java, C#, C, C++, R, Python, MATLAB, Perl/BioPerl, UNIX/Linux shell scripting languages). Experience of database design and management systems and SQL is advantageous.
• Experience of working within interdisciplinary (e.g. scientific/engineering/design) teams is advantageous.
• Skilled communicator who can explain complex problems and technical solutions to experts in other disciplines.
• Use of appropriate statistical analysis and modelling techniques to support interpretation of data produced by development studies.
• Ability to lead, perform and troubleshoot complex bioinformatic analyses independently and to a high level of quality.
• Enthusiasm, drive, thoroughness, diligence and a willingness to take personal responsibility to ensure that projects are successful.
• Excellent organizational skills and enjoys working to tight timelines.
• Experience of working within interdisciplinary (e.g. scientific/engineering/design) teams is advantageous.

Closing Date:

Sunday 22nd September, 2024

Yourgene Health is committed to encouraging equality, diversity and inclusion among our workforce. The aim is for our workforce to be truly representative of all sections of society and for each employee to feel respected and able to give their best.