Director, Lab Informatics & AI Systems

Aera Therapeutics Inc.; Cambridge (MA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Aera Therapeutics Inc. is seeking an Associate Director of Lab Technologies to lead the software, infrastructure, and computational backbone of the research organization. You will own systems that capture and structure scientific data and translate researchers' needs into secure, scalable AI-enabled solutions.

This role is onsite in Cambridge, four days per week. You will develop software for lab instruments, maintain cloud architecture, oversee bioinformatics, enable ML/AI design, manage

Qualifications

• Master’s degree with 8–10 years of relevant industry experience or PhD with 6–8 years of relevant industry experience.
• Experience with Python and AWS and the ability to engineer software infrastructure and analysis pipelines.
• Expertise in genomics and NGS, ideally RNA-seq and single cell sequencing.
• Significant experience working with Benchling.
• Prior hands-on experience working with oligonucleotide and/or mRNA therapeutics.
• Commitment to our Core Values: Respect, Integrity, Excellence, Impact

Responsibilities

• Develop software that runs on lab instruments to capture data and transform it into structured, usable form.
• Build and maintain cloud architecture and security hygiene, access control to those systems.
• Own the data architecture for scientific data, with schemas and models that keep it structured, traceable, and reusable.
• Develop and maintain Benchling as the core lab informatics system, evolving it with new features as the science grows and changes.
• Oversee and organize bioinformatics development across the group including support for NGS analysis, oligonucleotide design, and off-target analysis.
• Enable computational design and discovery, leveraging machine learning and AI methods.
• Evaluate, negotiate, and manage software vendors and contracts.
• Prepare budget requests and justifications for leadership, and manage purchasing.
• Manage Claude usage and implementation across the organization, in partnership with IT to ensure use is safe and defensible.
• Build tooling on top of Claude to extend AI for Aera's specific use cases.
• Lead, and mentor a small Lab Technologies team across software engineering, cloud infrastructure, bioinformatics, and lab informatics.
• Partner with research, regulatory, quality, IT, and finance to translate scientific and business needs into technical solutions.
• Communicate technical work clearly to non-technical and differently-technical stakeholders.
• Support regulatory and quality needs as the organization matures toward the clinic

Skills

Genomics & NGS

Benchling

Oligonucleotide/MRNA therapeutics

Leadership

Data architecture

Education

Master’s degree in engineering / CS / data science / automation / related field

PhD in a related scientific field

Tools

Python

AWS

Job description

Aera Therapeutics Inc. is seeking an Associate Director of Lab Technologies to lead the software, infrastructure, and computational backbone of the research organization. You will own systems that capture and structure scientific data and translate researchers' needs into secure, scalable AI-enabled solutions.

This role is onsite in Cambridge, four days per week. You will develop software for lab instruments, maintain cloud architecture, oversee bioinformatics, enable ML/AI design, manage