Bioinformatics Analyst I/II

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center is an independent, nonprofit organization providing adult cancer treatment and groundbreaking research focused on cancer and infectious diseases. Based in Seattle, Fred Hutch is the only National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center in Washington.

With a track record of global leadership in bone marrow transplantation, HIV/AIDS prevention, immunotherapy and COVID-19 vaccines, Fred Hutch has earned a reputation as one of the world's leading cancer, infectious disease and biomedical research centers. Fred Hutch operates eight clinical care sites that provide medical oncology, infusion, radiation, proton therapy and related services, and network affiliations with hospitals in five states. Together, our fully integrated research and clinical care teams seek to discover new cures to the world's deadliest diseases and make life beyond cancer a reality.

At Fred Hutch we value collaboration, compassion, determination, excellence, innovation, integrity and respect. Our mission is directly tied to the humanity, dignity and inherent value of each employee, patient, community member and supporter. Our commitment to learning across our differences and similarities make us stronger. We seek employees who bring different and innovative ways of seeing the world and solving problems.

The mission of Fred Hutchinson Innovation Lab (FHIL) is to help with adoption and to best leverage rapid technological developments that empower translational research related to cancer immunotherapy. FHIL serves the Fred Hutch Cancer Center (FHCC) and the Immunotherapy research community, which is a highly dynamic and collaborative environment.

As an integral member of FHIL, the Bioinformatics Analyst I/II provides collaborative and innovative analytic support to advance a broad range of projects mostly related cancer immunotherapy, leveraging single-cell and spatial transcriptomic data to support and empower cutting-edge research. This position will involve working closely with a broad range of investigators at FHCC and beyond. The Bioinformatics Analyst will be responsible for working with data from current and newly developed commercial assays, and for construction of analytic datasets sourcing elements from potentially diverse data sources, implementation of exploratory and predictive analyses, visualization of data, and communication and presentation of results.

This specific position will provide programming, analytic, and data-processing support for projects requiring supervised and unsupervised machine learning. Specific responsibilities include working with scientific investigators, senior data scientists and external collaborators; defining and programming data-processing pipelines for data analysis; conducting both prescribed analytical plans and exploratory data analyses; compiling of statistical analyses and the creation of data visualizations. This position will report to the FHIL Research Lab Manager and take direction from the FHIL Scientific Director.

A cover letter is preferred upon application that describes your interest in the position and any relevant experience.

Responsibilities will include a variety of analysis methodologies and data file storage/organizational duties. The following are typical tasks the successful applicant will perform:

Analyze large sequence datasets from diverse workflows including bulk RNA-seq, single-cell sequencing, and spatial transcriptomics platforms.
• Perform quality control and end-to-end analysis of large sequence datasets from diverse workflows.
• Ensure integrity and consistency of primary data, track experimental methods and metadata, define standardized analysis pipelines.
• Identify best-practice bioinformatics tools and strategies to meet the needs of proposed projects.
• Consult with researchers on sound experimental design.
• Review current literature to identify and adopt software and methodologies, making new analysis capabilities available to the Hutch community.
• Provide figures and written sections to document methods and results for manuscripts, presentations, and grant applications.
• Ability to learn new tools and content quickly and independently (although training will be given for specific types of analysis performed in the lab).
• Other duties as assigned.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

Bioinformatics Analyst I:

• Bachelor's degree in Statistics, Biostatistics, Bioinformatics or equivalent education.
  
• 0-2 years of work experience with bioinformatics in the relevant scientific domain.
  
• Proficiency in, at least, one modern scripting or programming language (Python, R, etc).

Bioinformatics Analyst II:

• Bachelor's degree in bioinformatics, computational biology, genetics, or related field with at least three years' direct experience in computational analysis of large sequence-based molecular data sets.
  
• Direct experience must include best-practice germline & somatic variant calling from exome capture data, analysis of bulk RNA-seq data with multiple contrasts, analysis of multimodal single-cell profiling data, epigenetic profiling, gene set enrichment, and integration of data across multiple modalities (e.g., epigenetic profiling and RNA-seq).
  
• Effective use of shell scripting and significant fluency in R and Python 3 are essential.
  
• Familiarity with commonly used Bioconductor packages, ggplot, tidyverse etc.
  
• Ability to generate and customize common data visualizations (PCA plots, volcano plots, Circos plots, etc).

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• MS degree in Computational Biology, Computer Science, or Bioinformatics, with at least 3 years direct experience in computational analysis of large sequence-based molecular datasets.
  
• Experience analyzing sequence data with effective use of shell scripting.
  
• Familiarity with version control and other software development best practices.
  
• Experience with workflow manager such as NextFlow
  
• Record and track analysis processing in GitHub, manage data transfers.
  
• Facility with commonly used Bioconductor packages, ggplot, tidyverse etc. Ability to generate and customize common data visualizations (PCA plots, volcano plots, Circos plots, etc).
  
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills are absolutely required.
• Ability to learn new tools and content quickly and independently.
• Strong oral and communication skills.
• Willing to work onsite most days (some flexibility in remote work).
• Ability to work collaboratively with a team of individuals with diverse backgrounds and expertise.
• A strong interest in developing reproducible analyses and reports.
• Experience working in and developing cloud computing environments is a plus.
• Knowledge of and interest in immunology/molecular biology a plus.

Bioinformatics Analyst I:The annual base salary range for this position is from $80,172 to $104,250, and pay offered will be based on experience and qualifications.

Bioinformatics Analyst II: The annual base salary range for this position is from $80,475 to $120,681, and pay offered will be based on experience and qualifications.

A cover letter is preferred upon application that describes your interest in the position and any relevant experience.

Although Fred Hutch is not sponsoring most H-1B visas at this time, candidates who already hold an H-1B sponsored by another organization and are currently in the U.S. may be eligible for this position.

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center offers employees a comprehensive benefits package designed to enhance health, well-being, and financial security. Benefits include medical/vision, dental, flexible spending accounts, life, disability, retirement, family life support, employee assistance program, onsite health clinic, tuition reimbursement, paid vacation (12-22 days per year), paid sick leave (12-25 days per year), paid holidays (13 days per year), and paid parental leave (up to 4 weeks).