Co-op, Data Engineering (open to Northeastern students only)

Ampersand Biomedicines; Boston (MA); Hybrid; USD 34,000 - 55,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare coverage

Annual incentive program

Retirement benefits

Job summary

Ampersand Biomedicines is seeking a Data Engineering Co-op to join the Computational Biology team. You will design, build, and maintain data pipelines supporting research and analytics, ensuring seamless data integration across lab, instrument, and research systems.

You will work with data scientists and researchers to define data requirements, transform data for analysis, and develop dashboards that translate pipeline outputs into actionable insights for scientists and leadership.

Qualifications

• Pursuing a Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, or related field at Northeastern University.
• Foundational experience through coursework or internships in data pipelines, ETL concepts or data integration.
• Proficiency in SQL and familiarity with database technologies (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redshift).
• Strong programming skills in Python and exposure to cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Familiarity with version control (git) and comfort with the command line.
• Excellent problem-solving and collaborative skills; able to communicate technical concepts clearly.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain scalable data pipelines and ETL processes for data integration across systems.
• Automate registration of lab instruments and pipeline outputs into ELN and data warehouse with validation and error handling.
• Collaborate with data scientists and researchers to define data requirements and deliver robust solutions.
• Model and transform data into clean, queryable tables and evaluate storage approaches (lakehouse/warehouse).
• Develop dashboards and visualizations turning pipeline output into actionable insights for scientists and leadership.
• Prototype and evaluate image-analysis pipelines for high-content imaging data and benchmarking against manual results.
• Implement data-quality checks and best practices to ensure data integrity and reproducibility.
• Monitor pipelines, troubleshoot issues, and document processes and infrastructure.

Skills

SQL

Python

ETL development

Data pipelines

Data integration

Git

Command line

Effective communication

Education

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or Data Science

Tools

PostgreSQL

MySQL

Redshift

Airflow

Spark

Tableau

Power BI

Plotly/Streamlit

Docker

Job description

The Role

Ampersand Biomedicines is seeking a talented and proactive Data Engineering Co-op to join our growing Computational Biology team. This individual will play a hands-on role in designing, building, and maintaining the data pipelines that support our research and analytics teams, ensuring the seamless integration and availability of scientific data with the opportunity to contribute across data integration, visualization, and image analysis. The ideal candidate is a motivated student or early-career engineer with strong technical fundamentals, a keen eye for detail, and a passion for leveraging data to innovate in the biomedicine space.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable data pipelines and ETL processes to support data integration across our laboratory, instrument, and research systems.
• Build automation to register lab instruments and pipeline outputs into our electronic lab notebook (ELN) and data warehouse, with validation and error handling.
• Collaborate with data scientists, analysts, and research teams to define data requirements and deliver robust data solutions.
• Model and transform data into clean, queryable tables and help evaluate modern data lake/warehouse storage approaches.
• Develop dashboards and visualizations that turn pipeline output into actionable information for scientists and leadership.
• Prototype and evaluate an image-analysis pipeline for high-content imaging data, benchmarking segmentation and classification approaches against manual results.
• Implement data-quality checks and best practices to ensure data integrity, reliability, and reproducibility.
• Monitor data pipelines, troubleshoot issues, and implement solutions to resolve data-related problems.
• Develop and maintain comprehensive documentation for data processes, workflows, and infrastructure.

Required Professional Experience & Qualifications

• Currently pursuing a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related field at Northeastern University.
• Foundational experience through coursework, personal projects, or a prior internship - with data pipeline development, ETL concepts, or data integration.
• Proficiency in SQL and familiarity with database technologies (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redshift).
• Strong programming skills in Python.
• Exposure to cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP) and their respective data services.
• Familiarity with version control (git) and comfort working from the command line.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to work independently as well as part of a collaborative team.
• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to convey technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Professional Experience & Qualifications

• Experience with data pipeline / orchestration or big data tools (e.g., Apache Airflow, AWS Glue, Spark).
• Familiarity with data warehousing or lakehouse formats (e.g. BigQuery, Apache Iceberg, Parquet).
• Experience with data visualization tools (e.g., Tableau, Power BI, Plotly, Streamlit).
• Experience with biological image segmentation and analysis like segmenting cells or tissue subtypes and quantifying features from microscopy images — is a strong plus.
• Knowledge of biomedical data standards, or prior experience with scientific or laboratory data systems.
• Familiarity with machine learning, REST APIs, or DevOps and containerization technologies (e.g., Docker).

Ampersand Biomedicines is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.

The salary range for this role is $25.00 - $40.00. Compensation for the role will depend on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies, and experience. Ampersand currently offers healthcare coverage, annual incentive program, retirement benefits and a broad range of other benefits. Compensation and benefits information is based on Ampersand’s good faith estimate as of the date of publication and may be modified in the future.