Senior Bioinformatics Scientist: AI‑Guided Protein Design

Illumina; Singapore; On-site; SGD 180,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Illumina is seeking a Senior Staff Scientist in Singapore to architect data foundations for protein engineering and to drive AI/ML-enabled design across high-throughput screening programs. You will define data structures, benchmark methods, and deliver tools that connect sequence, structure, and assays to actionable design decisions.

You will collaborate with experimental scientists, automation teams, and software engineers to ensure scalable, reproducible pipelines and closed-loop DBTL

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in computational chemistry, computational biology, bioinformatics, computer science or related fields, or equivalent work & educational experience.
• Significant experience leading computational biology, protein engineering, AI/ML, screening analytics, or scientific data infrastructure efforts.
• Deep experience applying computational or data-driven methods to protein engineering, enzyme engineering, directed evolution, assay analysis, or related biological design problems.
• Demonstrated ability to design data structures or analytical systems that support reproducible analysis, model training, and cross-project learning.
• Wet-lab experience in high-throughput or mid-throughput screening and/or biochemical assay designs.
• Strong programming skills in at least one major language (C/C++, Python, R).
• Knowledge of AI/ML methods and practical experience in adopting AI/ML-driven protein-design models.
• Strong fundamentals in statistical modelling, algorithm design, data analysis, and/or visualization.

Responsibilities

• Build reusable data foundations for protein engineering.
• Define data structures, metadata standards, variant lineage, assay context, controls, replicate handling, uncertainty, and negative data capture across screening workflows.
• Enable model-guided enzyme engineering by connecting sequence, structure, assay, and screening data to AI/ML models and design rationale.
• Benchmark computational and AI methods using internal pipelines, open-source methods, and external platforms.
• Deliver practical tools: scripts, templates, dashboards, and analysis pipelines for teams.
• Advance closed-loop DBTL workflows to capture results and convert into design recommendations.
• Partner with experimental scientists, automation, informatics, software and data teams to align workflows with throughput and goals.

Skills

C/C++

Python

R

UNIX

Git

Education

Ph.D. in computational chemistry, computational biology, bioinformatics, computer science or related fields

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

JAX

Rosetta

Git & HPC

Job description

Illumina is seeking a Senior Staff Scientist in Singapore to architect data foundations for protein engineering and to drive AI/ML-enabled design across high-throughput screening programs. You will define data structures, benchmark methods, and deliver tools that connect sequence, structure, and assays to actionable design decisions.

You will collaborate with experimental scientists, automation teams, and software engineers to ensure scalable, reproducible pipelines and closed-loop DBTL