Join Our Team at NEXUS Personalized Health
The ETH Zurich technology platform NEXUS Personalized Health facilitates discovery and translational research for personalized health. We offer a wide range of expertise across Clinical Bioinformatics, Biostatistics, Software Engineering, Systems Operations, and Screening & Lab Automation.
Within this multi-disciplinary environment, our Software Engineering group develops data-centric software products that enhance the usability of biomedical and clinical data in practice. Our team consists of 5 members and supports a diverse portfolio, including internal tools and research platforms, as well as applications developed in collaboration with clinical partners.
Position Overview: Group Leader Software Engineering
As the Group Leader for Software Engineering, you will lead a team dedicated to designing and building software products across a variety of research and translational projects. You will be responsible for delivery, maintaining engineering standards, and ensuring long-term maintainability. A key aspect of your role will be to cultivate and sustain a healthy project pipeline through active stakeholder management.
Key Responsibilities
- Project Management: Structure and oversee projects from start to finish, ensuring clear scope definition, milestone planning, risk management, documentation standards, and processes meet translational and clinical quality requirements.
- Technical Leadership: Establish and uphold standards for architecture, code quality, testing, documentation, and maintainability.
- Delivery Ownership: Lead multiple concurrent projects, translating real needs into clear scopes, milestones, and outcomes, even amidst evolving requirements.
- Project Acquisition and Customer Management: Build and maintain relationships with researchers, clinicians, and partners, transforming initial conversations into scoped proposals with defined trade-offs.
- Full-stack and Data-centric Systems: Guide solutions from database modeling to API design and user-facing web applications and dashboards, utilizing technologies like Postgres, Django REST Framework, and Vue.js, alongside cloud-based ELT solutions such as Databricks with Data Build Tool (DBT).
- Internal Product Portfolio: Develop reusable building blocks and tools that enhance NEXUS’s internal offerings.
- Security with Pragmatism: Promote solutions that are as open as necessary and as restricted as needed, minimizing security friction while ensuring necessary protections are in place.
- Handover Mindset: Ensure systems transition smoothly into real-world research and clinical applications, maintaining clear ownership boundaries and documentation for controlled handovers to Systems Operations.
- Cross-team Collaboration: Work closely with teams in Clinical Bioinformatics, Biostatistics, Systems Operations, and Screening & Lab Automation to deliver integrated end-to-end solutions.
- People Leadership: Recruit, mentor, and develop team members, fostering a sense of ownership and commitment to continuous improvement.
- Resource Management: Plan capacity, prioritize tasks, and contribute to budgeting and reporting for the group.
Who We’re Looking For
You will thrive in this role if:
- You enjoy creating software used in real clinical and research settings where quality and impact are paramount.
- You take charge of delivery outcomes and are passionate about leading projects and people, not just implementing features.
- You find energy in managing a diverse portfolio of projects and stakeholders rather than a single stable product.
- You have a consultative approach: building relationships, scoping initiatives, prioritizing effectively, and managing expectations.
- You keep security and compliance front of mind when dealing with sensitive data.
- You can drive delivery across stakeholders and maintain project momentum without compromising quality.
- You enjoy creating reusable components and are committed to pragmatically elevating engineering standards.
- You can navigate ambiguity and translate incomplete requirements into staged, testable deliverables.
Non-Negotiables
- Proven leadership experience in software engineering.
- Experience leading delivery across multiple stakeholders and projects.
- Strong stakeholder management skills: building trust, scoping, and managing expectations.
- Demonstrated experience in designing and implementing full-cycle data-centric software solutions (database, APIs, web applications).
- Strong proficiency in Linux/Unix, scripting (bash, Python), and an automation mindset.
- Experience with containerization techniques (Docker or similar).
- Excellent communication skills in English.
Strongly Expected
- Established practices for code reviews, testing strategy, CI/CD, release processes, and documentation standards across the team.
- Experience in developing software for security-sensitive environments, demonstrating pragmatic judgment.
Advantageous Qualifications
- Experience in data engineering (ETL/ELT design, validation, interoperability patterns).
- Familiarity with hospital IT contexts or clinical workflows.
- Knowledge of German.
Why NEXUS?
At NEXUS, we value knowledge exchange and teamwork, encouraging each member to contribute their unique expertise. We maintain flat hierarchies and a proactive attitude, offering flexible working hours, family-friendly models, training opportunities, and a stimulating environment at the forefront of translational research.
Apply online using the form below.
Only applications matching the job profile will be considered.
For more information about NEXUS Personalized Health, please visit our website. Questions regarding the position can be directed to Daniel Stekhoven at stekhoven@nexus.ethz.ch, and David Meyer at meyer@nexus.ethz.ch (no applications).