Head of Data Platform Engineering

Relation Therapeutics; Greater London; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Relation Therapeutics in London is seeking an Associate Director, Data Engineering, to lead the newly formed Data Platform team. You will shape a unified data platform strategy, treating it as a product for scientists and engineers, and drive end-to-end data flows from instruments to processing systems.

You'll hire and mentor data engineers, scale pipelines with Nextflow and Dagster, and champion data governance and security across the organization.

Qualifications

• A background in bioinformatics or data engineering with significant experience working in high-performing, interdisciplinary technical teams.
• Familiarity with modern data orchestration and infrastructure tools, including cloud systems (AWS/GCP/Azure), Kubernetes, and orchestration frameworks such as Nextflow and Dagster.
• Advanced programming skills in at least one of Python or Rust, with a track record of shipping scalable, well-tested code in a data-intensive or scientific research environment.
• Strong cross-functional coordination skills with a proven ability to bridge the gap between the wet lab, computational science requirements, and core engineering infrastructure.
• A good understanding of data governance frameworks and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles
• Knowledge of software engineering best practices and Data/Platform as a product thinking
• Bonus experience: ISO 27001, SOC 2, or GDPR in a research or clinical biotech context.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve Relation’s unified data platform strategy, in partnership with colleagues across Labs, Engineering, Data Science and Machine Learning
• Treat the data platform as a product, ensuring it reliably meets the needs of Relation’s engineers and scientists
• Lead, hire, and develop a high-performing team of Data Engineers
• Manage the end-to-end data flow from lab instruments to our information processing systems
• Optimize and oversee scientific compute pipelines using Nextflow and Dagster to ensure scalability and reproducibility
• Enforce data governance standards and ensure all information assets—spanning internal wet-lab data, external R&D sources, derived data and ML artefacts—are FAIR with automated lineage and provenance
• Drive operational excellence through robust CI/CD, testing frameworks for ETLs, and production-grade SDKs
• Own Relation’s data infrastructure security posture

Skills

Bioinformatics

Data engineering

Python

Rust

Cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure)

Kubernetes

Nextflow

Dagster

Data governance

CI/CD

Security

Tools

Nextflow

Dagster

Kubernetes

AWS

GCP

Azure

Job description

Relation Therapeutics in London is seeking an Associate Director, Data Engineering, to lead the newly formed Data Platform team. You will shape a unified data platform strategy, treating it as a product for scientists and engineers, and drive end-to-end data flows from instruments to processing systems.

You'll hire and mentor data engineers, scale pipelines with Nextflow and Dagster, and champion data governance and security across the organization.