Job Offer: Group Leader Clinical Bioinformatics
The ETH Zurich technology platform NEXUS Personalized Health fosters innovative discovery and translational research in the realm of personalized health. We leverage a wealth of expertise spanning Clinical Bioinformatics, Biostatistics, Software Engineering, Systems Operations, and Screening & Lab Automation.
Within this multi-disciplinary setting, the Clinical Bioinformatics group translates computational biology into clinically applicable outcomes, seamlessly bridging the gap between biomedical research and clinical practice. Our work encompasses project-specific analyses and the integration of high-dimensional molecular data—from whole-genome variant calling and decision support systems to single-cell sequencing analysis. We are committed to developing and enhancing robust analysis workflows and reusable components, collaborating closely with academic institutions and hospitals.
Your Role
As Group Leader Clinical Bioinformatics, you will lead a team of bioinformatics analysts and software engineers. Your responsibility will be to ensure that analyses and workflows are reproducible, scalable, and effectively utilized in translational and clinical settings. You will drive innovation by continuously assessing emerging technologies and analytical methods, integrating cutting-edge approaches into clinical and translational research. A crucial aspect of your role will involve securing, prioritizing, and strategically managing clinical and translational projects through active engagement with stakeholders.
Key Responsibilities
- Project Management: Structure and oversee projects from initiation to completion, ensuring clear scope definition, milestone planning, risk management, and documentation aligned with clinical quality requirements.
- Technical Leadership: Lead the development and enhancement of analysis pipelines using Nextflow and Snakemake. Establish standards for workflow engineering, documentation, and long-term maintainability.
- Delivery Ownership: Take responsibility for timelines, quality, and stakeholder alignment across multiple projects of varying scope.
- Project Acquisition and Customer Management: Build relationships with researchers, clinicians, and partners, shaping projects and translating needs into clear deliverables and expectations.
- Clinical Reporting and Decision Support: Transform complex, multimodal, large-scale results into actionable outputs for physicians, including dashboards and web-based reporting for decision support.
- Clinician Partnership: Actively listen to clinicians, clarifying useful outputs while keeping interfaces simple, allowing your team to manage technical complexities.
- Innovation and Scientific Advancement: Stay updated on developments in bioinformatics, AI, and data-driven medicine, evaluating new methods and technologies, and translating promising approaches into clinically viable solutions.
- Cross-Team Collaboration: Work closely with the Software Engineering, Systems Operations, Biostatistics, and Screening & Lab Automation groups to create integrated solutions.
- People Leadership: Recruit, mentor, and nurture team members, fostering knowledge exchange and maintaining high standards.
- Resource Management: Plan capacity, prioritize tasks, and contribute to budgeting and reporting for the group.
Ideal Candidate
You will thrive in this role if you:
- Enjoy overseeing projects from inception to delivery, collaborating with clinicians and partners to produce reliable, reusable solutions with clear outcomes.
- Value interdisciplinary collaboration, preferring to work closely with clinicians rather than in silos.
- Are comfortable making decisions about project direction and prioritization, taking accountability for timelines and quality.
- Enjoy creating workflows that others rely on, continuously enhancing them for improved reproducibility and impact.
- Can synthesize complex, multimodal data into clear decision-support outputs tailored for physicians.
- Set rigorous standards for workflow engineering and enjoy working collectively with a team to meet those standards.
Qualifications
Non-Negotiables:
- Proven leadership experience in clinical bioinformatics, genomics, or translational research delivery.
- Hands-on experience with analysis pipeline development and enhancement.
- Proficiency in workflow management with Nextflow and/or Snakemake, with the ability to set team standards.
- Daily practice with Git version control.
- Strong communication skills for clinician engagement and stakeholder management.
- Excellent proficiency in English.
Strongly Expected:
- Solid programming skills in Python or R with a focus on code quality (reviews, testing, documentation).
- Experience with various data types, including variant calling, expression analyses, and single-cell sequencing.
- Familiarity with quality control and reporting in genomics/transcriptomics.
Advantageous:
- Experience in statistics or software engineering practices beyond basic scripting.
- Experience using HPC and command-line tools (Bash).
- Knowledge of German.
At NEXUS, we value knowledge exchange and teamwork, bringing together diverse expertise. We maintain flat hierarchies and a can-do attitude, offering flexible working hours, family-friendly work models, training opportunities, and a stimulating environment at the forefront of translational research.
Application Process
Interested candidates are invited to apply online using the form below. Please include the following documents:
- Cover letter (include an example of a workflow/pipeline you have managed and an example of how you delivered a project).
- CV.
- Reference letter(s) and contact details of referees.
- Copies of relevant diplomas and certificates.
Only applications matching the job profile will be considered.
For further information about NEXUS Personalized Health, please visit our website. For questions regarding the position, feel free to contact Dr. Daniel Stekhoven at stekhoven@nexus.ethz.ch or Dr. Franziska Singer at singer@nexus.ethz.ch (no applications).
Please note that all applications must be submitted through our online application portal.