Technical Product Owner

European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL); Hinxton; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

EMBL-EBI in Hinxton, United Kingdom, seeks a Bioinformatics Software Engineer & Scientific Lead to combine hands-on software development with scientific leadership. You’ll help shape the strategy, development and long-term sustainability of Job Dispatcher and related software products owned by the team.

You will work at the intersection of software engineering, scientific computing and bioinformatics, collaborating with scientists, infrastructure teams and other stakeholders to deliver reliable,

Responsibilities

• Lead software development: Develop, maintain and improve production bioinformatics services and scientific software as an active member of the team.
• Shape product strategy: Work with the team project lead and Head of Services and Operations to define and deliver product roadmaps, technology direction and longer-term development priorities.
• Guide scientific direction: Provide specialist bioinformatics expertise to ensure services remain scientifically relevant, useful and aligned with the needs of the global user community.
• Manage priorities and delivery: Help curate and prioritise the development backlog, coordinating projects, dependencies, risks and technical deliverables.
• Coordinate service updates: Work with EBI service teams to plan and coordinate data updates, particularly for Job Dispatcher.
• Collaborate across teams: Work with scientists, software engineers, infrastructure teams and other stakeholders to deliver and improve reliable scientific services.
• Provide technical leadership: Represent the services in regular tools committee meetings, contribute to the wider ITS leadership community (TMC Plus) and support the evolution and modernisation of bioinformatics services.
• Share knowledge and impact: Promote services through training, conference presentations, scientific publications and service updates, helping users understand and make effective use of the tools.

Job description

Help shape the scientific software that powers bioinformatics research worldwide.

At EMBL-EBI, our bioinformatics services help researchers access and work with biological data at scale. As our Bioinformatics Software Engineer & Scientific Lead, you’ll combine hands‑on software development with scientific and technical leadership, helping guide the evolution of Job Dispatcher and other core software products.

About the team

The Software Team within EMBL-EBI’s ITS Service and Operations department develops and maintains centrally provided scientific software, including Job Dispatcher, which provides structured access to run bioinformatical analysis tools on our high performance compute clusters and FiRE, which manages the storage and archiving of over 120Pb of scientific data. Working at the intersection of software engineering, scientific computing and bioinformatics, the team delivers services that support researchers in working with biological data and running computational analyses.

The Role

You’ll combine hands‑on software development with scientific and technical leadership, helping shape the strategy, development and long‑term sustainability of Job Dispatcher and other software products owned by the team.

Primary Tasks & Responsibilities:

• Lead software development: Develop, maintain and improve production bioinformatics services and scientific software as an active member of the team.
• Shape product strategy: Work with the team project lead and Head of Services and Operations to define and deliver product roadmaps, technology direction and longer‑term development priorities.
• Guide scientific direction: Provide specialist bioinformatics expertise to ensure services remain scientifically relevant, useful and aligned with the needs of the global user community.
• Manage priorities and delivery: Help curate and prioritise the development backlog, coordinating projects, dependencies, risks and technical deliverables.
• Coordinate service updates: Work with EBI service teams to plan and coordinate data updates, particularly for Job Dispatcher.
• Collaborate across teams: Work with scientists, software engineers, infrastructure teams and other stakeholders to deliver and improve reliable scientific services.
• Provide technical leadership: Represent the services in regular tools committee meetings, contribute to the wider ITS leadership community (TMC Plus) and support the evolution and modernisation of bioinformatics services.
• Share knowledge and impact: Promote services through training, conference presentations, scientific publications and service updates, helping users understand and make effective use of the tools.