Ensembl is the leading resource for exploring and analysing genomes, used by researchers globally on a daily basis. In recent years, Ensembl has seen a substantial increase in the number of genomes across the tree of life, as well as increasing depth of annotation and resources around key model organisms and humans. We have conducted an extensive multi-year program to re-engineer our infrastructure to meet these challenges and sustainably continue to support researchers using our tools and services. At the heart of this program is our new website (https://beta.ensembl.org), which is built around a service-orientated architecture delivering large quantities of data to a modern and responsive front-end client application. Many key components, including the incorporation of new AI based tools, remain to be developed.

We are enthusiastic to announce a new EMBL Faculty role to head our ongoing developments whilst continuing to meet emerging demands of Ensembl as the Genomics Technology Infrastructure Team Leader at EMBL-EBI.

Your role 

You will lead a multidisciplinary team of approximately 15 staff members including software engineers, bioinformaticians, designers and UX experts to build infrastructures to serve and disseminate biological data. These methods of dissemination include visualisations, data explorers, and application programming interfaces (APIs). Your team will be responsible for leading the creation of novel data stores, serving the needs of researchers in both high and low resource settings, and transitioning Ensembl to an AI-ready resource. You will also investigate the application of AI-based tools to improve Ensembl services and processes. 

You will work closely with other Team Leaders within Ensembl, and more broadly with leadership across EMBL-EBI and other EMBL sites to deliver integrated systems and data flows between our EMBL key partners. You will also be a lead contact with EMBL-EBI’s IT Technical Services, who provide the underlying IT infrastructure behind our resources.

In this role, you will use your knowledge of systems architecture and design to guide your team to develop sustainable, scalable solutions. You will also coordinate the development of new interfaces and tools alongside the maintenance of existing tools and codebases including migration of these to new technologies and infrastructure. Your knowledge and experience will be key to developing achievable strategies and roadmaps in a collaborative approach with colleagues in the wider Ensembl team. An essential part of this role is anticipating future demands from biological research, evaluating technical advances and balancing these with the continued delivery of key priorities. 

As you progress in this role, you will develop a deep understanding of EMBL-EBI’s resources and the communities we serve. This will include directly engaging with research communities, industry partners and global standards organisations such as the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health. You will be given the opportunity to work with a talented and driven workforce who work towards a shared vision of delivering the very best scientific resources.

We seek an individual who has a passion for technology, creating impactful resources, scenario and strategic planning, fundraising, developing staff and taking a leading role in key collaborations with international consortia and organisations.

If this sounds like you, we invite you to apply!

This role reports to the Section Head for Genome Assembly and Annotation, Rob Finn.

You have:

• A PhD degree in a relevant field or equivalent relevant experience

• A demonstrable track record of systems design and architecture

• Experience designing databases, developing websites and working with big data (gigabyte to terabyte scale)

• In-depth knowledge of the following: software engineering, relational databases, service provision, API development, standards, software development best practices

• Project management and staff management experience

• Experience contributing to budget management and managing grants, including grant writing and reporting

• An understanding of agile and similar software development processes including how to adapt these methods to maximise success in multi-partner projects

• Experience maintaining legacy code and systems including migration to new implementations

• Knowledge of deployment infrastructures including virtual machines, commercial cloud and kubernetes

• Experience with collaborative development tools such as GitHub, GitLab, Jira and Confluence

• Excellent communication skills. Have an ability to engage with stakeholders including technical specialists, domain experts and wider research and industry communities.

• Excellent interpersonal skills, with a collaborative mentality.

• A commitment to continual improvement of systems, processes and staff

• The ambition and drive to develop high-impact data services for the wider research community

You may also have:

• Experience of some of the following technologies: workflow managers, data warehousing technology, high-performance computing platforms, database and database query optimisation, and data mining

• Experience in some of the following domains: bioinformatics, genomics, ontologies, functional annotation, and high throughput sequencing analysis, statistics

• Experience of some of the following technologies: Python, Rust, Perl, GraphQL, JavaScript, TypeScript, Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, DuckDB, SQLite

• Hands on experience working with AI based tools, both as a data provider and their application in the context of a website. 

• Experience in writing grants to a range of funding agencies

• A track record in leading scientific projects

• Participation in multi-institute collaborations

• Presented at international meetings

• Participation in public-private scientific partnerships

• Experience leading work packages for complex multi-partner grants and chairing international steering groups and committees on technical subjects