Software Engineer, Idea Bio (Aibn)

• Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN)
  
• Broaden your career within one of QLD's largest employers
  
• Be part of an organisation with a meaningful purpose and impact
  
• Based at our vibrant St Lucia campus
  

As part of the UQ community, you will have the opportunity to work alongside the brightest minds, who have joined us from all over the world.

Everyone here has a role to play. As a member of our professional staff cohort, you will be actively involved in working towards our vision of a better world. By supporting the academic endeavour across teaching, research, and the student life, you will have the opportunity to contribute to activities that have a lasting impact on our community.

Join a community where excellence is at the core of our culture, contributions are valued and a range of benefits and rewards are available, such as:

• 26 weeks paid parental leave or 14 weeks paid primary caregiver leave
• 17% superannuation contributions
• 17.5% annual leave loading
• Access to flexible working arrangements including hybrid working options, flexible start/finish times, purchased leave, and a condensed fortnight
• Health and wellness discounts - fitness passport access, free yearly flu vaccinations, discounted health insurance, and access to our Employee Assistance Program for staff and their immediate family
• On campus childcare options
• Cheap parking (from just $5.75 a day)
• Salary packaging options

IDEA Bio (https://www.ideabio.org.au/) has emerged as a state-of-the-art fermentation biofoundry, dedicated to providing high-quality services to both academic and industry partners. Our mission is to develop sustainable bioprocesses that contribute to the growth of Queensland's bioeconomy and enhance Australia's position in the global biotechnology landscape. IDEA Bio is composed of a TEST capability, involving the culturing of organisms in bioreactors and gathering data about fermentation performance and cell physiology (including 'omics measurements such as protein and metabolite measurements), and a LEARN capability, that seeks to use these large data sets to learn how to alter fermentation parameters or genetically engineer strains to enhance performance. We also collaborate closely with Queensland Metabolomics and Proteomics (Q MAP https://www.qmap.org.au/) and the Australian Genome Foundry (Macquarie University).

We are seeking a Software Engineer to aid the LEARN team at IDEA Bio in establishing a data analysis pipeline. You will work closely with data scientists, a bioinformatician and a machine learning specialist to construct custom workflows that allow the high-throughput processing and analysis of data from a Laboratory Information Management System.

Key responsibilities will include:

Core Scientific

• Contribute to the coding and development of custom data analysis algorithms and modelling tools for systems biology or machine-learning.
• Develop a flexible, modular data analysis pipeline that retrieves data from a LIMS system (OpenBIS), performs required pre-processing and quality checks and prepares data for analysis through custom and open-source tools and workflows to analyse data as required by the LEARN team.
• Ensure said pipeline is deployable and operable on high-performance computing.
• Where relevant, re-code existing software into more appropriate languages or to enhance performance.
• Develop flowcharts, layouts and documentation to identify requirements and solutions.
• Write well-designed, testable code.
• Develop software verification plans and quality assurance procedures.
• Document and maintain software functionality.
• Use an appropriate repository, such as GitHub, to share software and enable collaborative development with other researchers.
• Where required, maintain or further develop the data and metadata capture workflows that capture bioreactor and sample data in the LIMS system.
• Contribute to research outputs, joint preparation, and authorship of reports/manuscripts as appropriate.
• If relevant, contribute to the set-up and operation of cloud-based bioreactor systems.

General

• Perform other duties as reasonably directed by the Senior Data Scientist.

Safety

• Ensure a high standard of occupational health and safety standards and systems, including inductions, supervision, equipment training registers, administration of research facilities, inventories, reporting and investigating injuries, incidents, and hazards.

Leadership and management

• Promptly resolve conflict and grievances when they arise in accordance with University policy and procedures.

Other

Ensure you are aware of and comply with legislation and University policy relevant to the duties undertaken, including but not exclusive to:

• The University's Code of Conduct.
• Requirements of the Queensland occupational health and safety (OH&S) legislation and related OH&S responsibilities and procedures developed by the University or Institute/School.
• The adoption of sustainable practices in all work activities and compliance with associated legislation and related University sustainability responsibilities and procedures.
• Requirements of the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000, the National Code 2007 and associated legislation, and related responsibilities and procedures developed by the University.

This is a full-time (100%), fixed-term position for up to 18 months.

At HEW level 6, the full-time equivalent base salary will be in the range $88,099.39 - $94,512.08, plus a generous super allowance of up to 17%. The total FTE package will be up to $103,076.28 - $110,579.13 annually. As these roles are covered by an Enterprise Agreement, you will also receive regular remuneration increases in line with the Enterprise Agreement.

You will be a self-motivated, solutions focused Software Engineer with:

• Qualifications and training equivalent to an undergraduate degree in IT or related field and subsequent relevant experience; or an equivalent combination of relevant experience and/or education/training.
• Comfortable working across a range of programming languages including Python, R and MATLAB.
• Demonstrated experience encoding a workflow in at least one of the above languages.
• Experience using high-performance computing.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills with proven ability to produce clear, succinct documentation.
• Demonstrated experience working collaboratively with a team.
• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to plan, prioritize tasks, meet deadlines, and work adaptably both independently and in a team.

Desirable

• Knowledge of cloud services
• Familiarity with relational database management systems
• Docker and container-based development.
• Prior experience with laboratory information management systems.
• Strong mathematical background.

In addition, the following mandatory requirements apply:

• Work Rights: You must have unrestricted work rights in Australia for the duration of this appointment to apply. Visa sponsorship is not available for this appointment.
• Background Checks: All final applicants for this position may be asked to consent to a criminal record check. Please note that people with criminal records are not automatically barred from applying for this position. Each application will be considered on its merits.

For more information about this opportunity, please contact Dr Timothy McCubbin - **********@uq.edu.au

For application queries, please contact ******@uq.edu.au stating the job reference number (below) in the subject line.

All applicants must upload the following documents in order for your application to be considered:

• Cover letter addressing the 'About You' section
• Resume

At UQ we know that our greatest strengths come from our diverse mix of colleagues, this is reflected in our ongoing commitment to creating an environment focused on equity, diversity and inclusion. We ensure that we are always attracting, retaining and promoting colleagues who are representative of the diversity in the broader community, whether that be gender identity, LGBTQIA+, cultural and/or linguistic, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples, people with a disability, or age. Accessibility requirements and/or adjustments can be directed to ******@uq.edu.au.

If you are a current employee (including casual staff and HDR scholars) or hold an unpaid/affiliate appointment, please login to your staff Workday account and visit the internal careers board to apply for this opportunity. Please do NOT apply via the external job board.

Applications close 24 June 2024 at 11.00pm AEST (Job Reference Number - R-39391). Please note that interviews have been tentatively scheduled for late June.