Bioinformatics Specialist
Apply NowCompany: The University of British Columbia
Location: Vancouver, BC V5K 5J9
Description:
Staff - Non Union
Job Category
M&P - AAPS
Job Profile
AAPS Salaried - Information Systems and Technology, Level C
Job Title
Bioinformatics Specialist
Department
Leadership | Shared Research Platform
Compensation Range
$6,747.50 - $9,701.42 CAD Monthly
The Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.
Posting End Date
April 30, 2025
Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the Posting End Date.
Job End Date
Mar 1, 2026
At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career.
Job Summary
UBC established the Sequencing and Bioinformatics Consortium (SBC) to help make sequencing affordable and accessible to the largest number of researchers on campus. Data analysis, data management and systems administration are essential components of all SBC activity, as the environment is one of rapid change and emerging technologies and methods, each requiring customized and novel data solutions.
The Bioinformatics Specialist is responsible for overseeing the UBC Sequencing and Bioinformatics Consortium's (SBC) analysis pipelines as well as compute and data management systems. This individual researches, analyzes and implements solutions to support and enhance Consortium activities and provides excellent service to its users.
Organizational Status
Reports to the Shared Research Platforms Manager - Operations at the Vice President Office of Research and Innovation, Operations Manager at VPRI, and works in collaboration with the Scientific Advisor of the SBC, VP Research & Innovation Office, the Advanced Research Computing (ARC) team, UBC IT, the users of the SBC (researchers, staff, students or industry clients) as well as collaborators at affiliated organizations.
Work Performed
Consequence of Error/Judgement
Errors would have significant impact to the integrity and reputation of the Consortium, the research of its users and the development of the genomics community in British Columbia. Errors in judgement would affect UBC's ability to create a nationally recognized Consortium, and recruit and retain talented researchers, staff and students. Errors would have a significant impact on the university's ability to receive grant funding and on the Scientific Advisor's ability to carry out his/her mission and functions.
Supervision Received
Works independently under the supervision of the Operations Manager, under broad goals and objectives developed in conjunction with the Scientific Advisors of the Sequencing and Bioinformatics Consortium. Responsible for independently developing and implementing projects based on the goals and objectives of the Sequencing and Bioinformatics Consortium.
Supervision Given
Expected to assist and advise other SBC team members and users including students. May supervise or participate in supervision of more junior personnel such as non-union technical staff, undergraduate research assistants or Co-Op students.
Minimum Qualifications
Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline. Minimum of three years of related experience, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.
- Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one's own
- Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one's own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion
Preferred Qualifications
Job Category
M&P - AAPS
Job Profile
AAPS Salaried - Information Systems and Technology, Level C
Job Title
Bioinformatics Specialist
Department
Leadership | Shared Research Platform
Compensation Range
$6,747.50 - $9,701.42 CAD Monthly
The Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.
Posting End Date
April 30, 2025
Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the Posting End Date.
Job End Date
Mar 1, 2026
At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career.
Job Summary
UBC established the Sequencing and Bioinformatics Consortium (SBC) to help make sequencing affordable and accessible to the largest number of researchers on campus. Data analysis, data management and systems administration are essential components of all SBC activity, as the environment is one of rapid change and emerging technologies and methods, each requiring customized and novel data solutions.
The Bioinformatics Specialist is responsible for overseeing the UBC Sequencing and Bioinformatics Consortium's (SBC) analysis pipelines as well as compute and data management systems. This individual researches, analyzes and implements solutions to support and enhance Consortium activities and provides excellent service to its users.
Organizational Status
Reports to the Shared Research Platforms Manager - Operations at the Vice President Office of Research and Innovation, Operations Manager at VPRI, and works in collaboration with the Scientific Advisor of the SBC, VP Research & Innovation Office, the Advanced Research Computing (ARC) team, UBC IT, the users of the SBC (researchers, staff, students or industry clients) as well as collaborators at affiliated organizations.
Work Performed
- Acts as the lead analyst/programmer for bioinformatics data analysis and software development projects and lead architect for data management and database solutions. Provides design input and strategic technical suggestions to maintain an end-to-end system that efficiently houses, analyzes and disseminates high-quality data and results.
- Conducts and supports bioinformatic and statistical analysis and interpretation of DNA and RNA sequencing data in internal and collaborative research projects using appropriate software tools and custom-written programs and scripts.
- Responsible for overseeing the quality control process to ensure that all data released by the SBC (NGS and Sanger) aligns with the QC expectations set by the consortium, including trend analyses
- Communicate with researchers to discuss and review experimental design, ensuring that all data requirements and study objectives are clearly understood and effectively addressed throughout the project.
- Designs solutions to resolve system-related problems, meet user requirements, and streamline system workflows.
- Be familiar with facility SOPs for internal processes such as workflow to upload data and workflow to run an analysis pipeline.
- Monitors and analyzes systems issues and provides recommendations for all systems supported infrastructure as part of regular operations.
- Writes and maintains systems documentation including user and technical manuals.
- Acts as a liaison between technical groups and stakeholders to coordinate the system's installation and ensure technical compatibility and satisfaction.
- Develops tests for all software developed by creating test data and inputs and testing code.
- Implements data management tools including relational database management applications for efficient storage and retrieval of all results from all samples used in the research work.
- Conducts and supports bioinformatic and statistical analysis and interpretation of DNA and RNA sequencing data in internal and collaborative research projects using appropriate software tools and custom-written programs and scripts.
- Documents and communicates analysis results in written and oral form.
- Contributes to team interactions by consultation, collaboration, teamwork and task sharing. Works to ensure that experimental design includes data management and analysis considerations. Ongoing professional development in bioinformatics data management and analysis.
- Offers guidance to researchers for project-specific protocol adaptations.
- Evaluates technology through vendor collaborations.
- Maintains appropriate professional designations and up-to-date knowledge of current information technology techniques and tools.
- Develops and implements innovative strategies as technology evolves.
- Works with SBC partners at other local sequencing centres to address client needs, as required.
- Performs tasks as needed not described above in consultation with the VPRI SRP Manager - Operations and Scientific Advisor.
- Other related duties as required
Consequence of Error/Judgement
Errors would have significant impact to the integrity and reputation of the Consortium, the research of its users and the development of the genomics community in British Columbia. Errors in judgement would affect UBC's ability to create a nationally recognized Consortium, and recruit and retain talented researchers, staff and students. Errors would have a significant impact on the university's ability to receive grant funding and on the Scientific Advisor's ability to carry out his/her mission and functions.
Supervision Received
Works independently under the supervision of the Operations Manager, under broad goals and objectives developed in conjunction with the Scientific Advisors of the Sequencing and Bioinformatics Consortium. Responsible for independently developing and implementing projects based on the goals and objectives of the Sequencing and Bioinformatics Consortium.
Supervision Given
Expected to assist and advise other SBC team members and users including students. May supervise or participate in supervision of more junior personnel such as non-union technical staff, undergraduate research assistants or Co-Op students.
Minimum Qualifications
Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline. Minimum of three years of related experience, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.
- Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one's own
- Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one's own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion
Preferred Qualifications
- Master's degree preferred.
- Three years of related bioinformatics experience, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.
- Experience working in Linux/UNIX operating system environment. Proficiency in one or more of bash scripting, Python, and R.
- Familiarity with Git or other code versioning management software.
- Familiarity with bioinformatics tools for sequence analysis e.g. QC suites, aligners, assemblers, gene expression
- Familiarity with designing NGS experiments, with a strong ability to assess and ensure that the specific data requirements and objectives of each project are effectively met
- Experience working with high performance computing or other Linux cluster environment or cloud computing systems.
- An understanding of parallelization using job schedulers such as PBS Pro or SLURM.
- Eager to learn new things and contribute to a dynamic research environment. Demonstrates strong technical, analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Ability to plan and carry out multiple tasks and projects, to prioritize and organize effectively, to work under pressure and to meet established timelines.
- Ability to work independently and in a team environment.
- As this position also involves extensive personal interaction as well as via phone and email, excellent written and verbal English communication skills are critical.
- Familiarity with sequencing instrumentation hardware and software requirements for data collection.
- Familiarity with the following is an asset:
- Commercial cloud computing environments e.g. Google, Amazon
- UBC ARC's Sockeye high-performance computing platform
- Knowledge of RDBMS systems MySQL or Oracle, experience in database administration
- Web application configuration experience with PHP, Tomcat, and Apache
- Continuous integration systems such as Bamboo, Jenkins, and OpenShift
- Experience with statistical and computational approaches to the analysis of genomic and genetic data sets, including conducting and publishing biological research including experimental design and/or domain-specific knowledge including human genetics, microbial ecology and immunology