Senior Data Scientist at Ginkgo Bioworks

Ginkgo is constructing, editing, and redesigning microorganisms to answer humanity's most pressing challenges in health, energy, food, materials, and more. Our mission is clear--to make biology easier to engineer--and it is the foundation of everything we do at Ginkgo. On the Data Team, our focus is the strategic application of data science and engineering across our business. We tackle diverse problems that span molecular biology, robotic automation, finance & business strategy, and operations, all in service of supporting data-driven decision-making. We do that through a combination of durable software tools, closely embedded analysts, and side-by-side collaboration with data engineering.
 
As a Senior Data Scientist, you’ll join a distributed, highly collaborative team composed of data engineers, analysts, and data scientists with a wide range of backgrounds and experiences (the majority of the team is currently located in Boston and Seattle). You'll partner closely with scientific collaborators from across Ginkgo to develop analysis plans, deliver durable reports, on-board and train partners, and work with data analysts and engineers to deliver data-driven software tools. The Data Scientist role will be primarily focused on analytical automation and support of our in-house automated foundry for designing and building new organisms, i.e. automated outlier detection, normalization for batch effects, and hit detection, and delivery of results in clean, easy-to-understand outputs. You are a self-starter and a strong technical contributor who can identify opportunities to solve problems with data. You should be curious and eager to learn about both the science and the business, possess analytical skills to uncover rich insights from complex datasets, and excel at communicating your work to audiences with varying degrees of technical expertise. 
 
Every day we face new technical and scientific challenges that require deep cross-functional collaboration and novel solutions. Success in this evolving field is only possible with teams that represent diverse people, ideas, backgrounds, experiences, and ways of working. Active inclusion is core to how Ginkgo wins. We encourage individuals from underrepresented backgrounds to apply.
 
Please note: This is a residence-based (remote) role with a minimum requirement of quarterly travel to our headquarters in Boston, MA. Candidates must be willing to work on a distributed team and adhere to common working hours across time zones, with an expected start time of 10AM ET.


Responsibilities

Consult directly with foundry scientists in order to deliver automated data science and analysis pipelines to better help scale foundry operations
Design, build, and deliver end-to-end data products such as APIs or web front ends to deliver models to internal stakeholders
Present work progress, insights, and recommendations to stakeholders and senior leadership
Eagerness to learn about both the science and the business and identify opportunities to solve problems with data



Minimum Requirements

Track record of delivering end-to-end data science products, i.e. ability to work across the product lifecycle from exploration and discovery, to operationalization and production
Experience analyzing complex data, drawing conclusions, and making actionable recommendations
Track record of storytelling with data, specifically supporting data-driven decisions with compelling visualizations using tools like Tableau, seaborn / Altair, and/or ggplot2 / shiny
Strong project management skills including managing complexity and making informed trade-offs to quickly escape rabbit holes and make on-time deliveries
Fluency and practical experience with statistical methods like exploratory data analysis, hypothesis testing, power analysis, regression, and generalized linear models, as well as familiarity with advanced methods like, time-series and survival analysis
Fluency and practical experience with machine learning concepts and algorithms in supervised and unsupervised learning settings; examples include general machine learning workflow, linear/logistic regression, decision trees, neural networks, clustering, etc
Fluency and practical experience with data visualization techniques and best practices, and deep skill in at least one visualization tool
Software development best practices including story estimation, test-driven development, code review, and version control with git
Extensive experience with SQL required
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Strong technical writer and documenter
Familiarity with communication strategies and tactics for managing a distributed team



Preferred Capabilities and Experience

Experience working with biological data, specifically in the context of high-throughput screening
Experience with Agile workflow practices and familiarity with Atlassian tools including Jira, and Confluence 
Experience with the Amazon Web Services ecosystem 
Experience working with NoSQL data environments and tools such as Hadoop, Spark, DynamoDB 
Experience writing and maintaining ETL workflows with tools like Airflow or Luigi
Deep Python skills including familiarity with pandas, scikit-learn, and advanced visualization libraries such as Altair, seaborn and matplotlib



To learn more about Ginkgo, check out some recent press:
What is it really like to take your company public via a SPAC? One Boston biotech shares its journey (Fortune)
Ginkgo Bioworks resizes the definition of going big in biotech, raising $2.5B in a record SPAC deal that weighs in with a whopping $15B-plus valuation (Endpoints News)
Ginkgo Bioworks CEO on scaling up Covid-19 testing: ‘If we try, we can win’ (CNBC)
Ginkgo raises $70 million to ramp up COVID-19 testing for employers, universities (Boston Globe)
Ginkgo Bioworks Redirects Its Biotech Platform to Coronavirus (Wall Street Journal)
Ginkgo Bioworks Provides Support on Process Optimization to Moderna for COVID-19 Response (PRNewswire)
The Life Factory: Synthetic Organisms From This $1.4 Billion Startup Will Revolutionize Manufacturing (Forbes)
Synthetic Bio Pioneer Ginkgo Raises $290 Million in New Funding (Bloomberg)
Ginkgo Bioworks raises $350 million fund for biotech spinouts (Reuters)
Can This Company Convince You to Love GMOs? (The Atlantic)

We also feel that it’s important to point out the obvious here – there’s a serious lack of diversity in our industry, and that needs to change. Our goal is to help drive that change. Ginkgo is deeply committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in all of its practices, especially when it comes to growing our team. Our culture promotes inclusion and embraces how rewarding it is to work with people from all walks of life.  

We’re developing a powerful biological engineering platform, so we must remain mindful of the many ways our technology can – and will – impact people around the world. We care about how our platform is used, and having a diverse team to build it gives us the best chance that it’s something we’ll be proud of as it continues to grow. Therefore, it’s critical that we incorporate the diverse voices and visions of all those who play a role in the future of biology.

It is the policy of Ginkgo Bioworks to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants.