Software Engineer

Garvan Institute of Medical Research brings together world leading scientists and clinicians, collaborating locally and globally, to advance our understanding of disease, particularly cancer, autoimmunity and genetic disorders. Garvan is a global leader in fundamental biomedical research and its translation. Our mission is to make discoveries that will improve health for all. Building on our scientific strengths in genomics, cancer and immunology, enabled by cutting-edge technology and world-class facilities, and the support of our passionate Garvan family, our researchers and professional staff, we will drive more of our discoveries to clinical and societal impact.

THE OPPORTUNITY

The Centre for Population Genomics is looking for a Software Engineer. You’ll be responsible for supporting large scale genomic analysis methods in conjunction with web-based tools (like the gnomAD browser) for providing intuitive access to complex scientific datasets.
 

This role will be part of a small, high-energy software engineering team that will work in close collaboration with the Centre’s genomic analysis teams. The latter will consist of computational biologists and population geneticists, who will iterate with you on analysis methods, tools, interfaces, and visualisations.
 

There will be a huge opportunity to work on the infrastructure and tools that support impactful medical research.
 

All software developed by the Centre will be open-source and designed using best practices to ensure widespread use by the wider scientific community and rapid translation into impact on human biology and medicine. You will work in an environment that combines the intellectual freedom and collaboration of academia with rigorous, open software development practices. To make sure our solutions prove useful for the wider genomics community, we’ll be working closely with partners like the Broad Institute.
           

The role will report to the Software Lead and will interact closely with other members of the CPG’s Software Team and Genomic Analysis Teams, and with other computational groups at Garvan and MCRI.

Salary: Up to $95,000 + 11.5% super + salary packaging (depending on experience)

Employment Type: 2 year fixed-term contract

SNAPSHOT OF BENEFITS

• Generous salary packaging to save you income tax on your wages thereby boosting your monthly take home pay (max. $15,900 general expenses + $2,650 meals/accom)

• Ample opportunities for on-going training and development

• Stimulating, diverse and highly international research environment

• Flexible work arrangements e.g. start / finish times

• 18 weeks paid parental leave for both parents including paid superannuation

• A range of additional leave types to meet your personal needs including cultural leave, conference leave, community service and study leave

• Discounted Health Insurance

• Lifestyle discounts with our community partners

WHAT YOU WILL DO

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The key responsibilities include:

Executive Support

• Develop and maintain software features under the guidance of senior engineers and technical leads.

• Collaborate with team members to understand requirements, contribute ideas, and implement solutions.

• Write clean, readable, and well-tested code in line with team standards and best practices.

• Participate in regular code reviews, actively seeking and applying feedback to grow technical skills.

• Investigate and fix bugs , performance issues, and usability problems in a timely manner.

• Contribute to technical documentation to support future maintenance and onboarding.

• Assist in testing and deployment processes,  including writing automated tests and participating in CI/CD workflows.

• Stay up to date with modern development tools and practices, and proactively learn new technologies relevant to the team’s stack.

• Communicate clearly and effectively with both technical and non-technical team members.

• Take ownership of tasks and progressively handle more complex work with increasing independence

• Work closely with computational biologists to translate their requirements into scalable cloud-based infrastructure (e.g. metadata databases, workflow management systems on multiple cloud providers) that can be deployed in production on massive genomic datasets.

ABOUT YOU

EXPERIENCE, KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS REQUIRED

The key skills and experience include:

• A BCST / BIT / BE degree in computer science, software engineering, information technology, bioinformatics engineering, biomedical engineering or a related field.

• 3+ years of professional software development experience, with a proven track record of delivering production-quality systems.

• Experience with Python, or other prominent languages such as C++, Go, Rust, Scala. Understanding of how to build and test performant, decoupled, maintainable code.

• Experience with databases such as Postgres, MariaDB, MySQL, including query optimisation techniques, such as indexes and joins.

• Experience with dev-ops processes like CI / CD, building containers, application monitoring, especially in cloud environments like Google Cloud, Azure, or AWS is a plus.

• Ability to prioritize across multiple simultaneous projects and keep stakeholders in the loop.

• Keen interest in open source and desire to learn new technologies and understand / enhance large existing code bases.

• A pragmatic approach to software driven by project needs and timelines rather than a predetermined commitment to specific technical stacks.

• Ability to work effectively in a fully remote team, including strong communication skills,

• both written and verbal.

 Optional

• Experience with scientific computing or bioinformatics tools (e.g., Hail, Nextflow, WDL, or Snakemake).

• Familiarity with genomics data formats ( e.g., VCF, BAM, FASTQ) or processing workflows.

• Background working with large-scale data pipelines and metadata management in research or health environments.

FURTHER CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

• As the appointed candidate will hold an honorary appointment with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, a Working with Children & National Police Clearance (if appointed) in compliance with the Victorian Government's Child Safety Standards is required.

ABOUT GARVAN

Garvan Institute of Medical Research is an independent Medical Research Institute (MRI) in Sydney, delivering scientific and clinical impact on a global basis and in partnership with organisations that share our vision. We are proud to be one of Australia’s largest and most highly regarded MRI’s.

Our vision is global leadership in discoveries to impact and our enduring purpose is to impact human health, by harnessing information encoded in our genome.

We seek to see our world-class discovery research achieve life-changing impacts, not only for individual patients with rare diseases, but for the many thousands affected by complex, common disease.

Garvan promotes a diverse workplace and is committed to the principles of equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging. We are always looking for culture ‘add’, not culture ‘fit’ and are building diverse teams with great sets of complementary styles and skills to help deliver our important work effectively.

HOW TO APPLY

To apply for this position, please submit your application with a CV and cover letter as one document, stating why you are interested in this role. We are reviewing applications as they are received. If you think you’re the right person for this role, we’d love to hear how your capabilities, achievements and experience set you apart. Only applicants with full working rights in Australia are eligible to apply for this role.