Senior Manager of Data Science Production Engineering, DevOps

This is an exciting opportunity to lead a DevOps team at Natera, a global leader in precision medicine and genomics testing.  As a Senior Manager of the DevOps team inside our Data Science Production Engineering (DSPE) department, you will have the opportunity to work with Natera's diverse and ultra-large data sets (up to PB size), build upon the latest information and cloud technologies, create solutions for the most cutting-edge medical diagnostics and genomics applications, and make real impact by delivering reliable, efficient, high performance data/cloud/automation systems to support Natera's Lab Operations and Genetic Counselor/Lab Director teams, and ultimately impact patients' medical outcomes.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES: 

Leadership

• Lead a DevOps team, working closely with other DSPE teams, to develop, test, deploy, maintain, and update DSPE's data platforms, cloud platforms, automation systems, and analytics systems
• Manage the DevOps team, to achieve the timely and efficient delivery of software products and systems with correct and robust functionality.
• Train and coach team members on new technologies, procedures, and guidelines/best practices.
• Create and maintain operational visibility (e.g., workload, productivity, etc.) of the DSPE DevOps team.

Technical

• Translate DSPE's business needs and project requirements into technical specifications and implementation plans.
• Working with DSPE leadership teams, create suitable system architecture and infrastructure design documents that can be efficiently implemented and maintained.
• Maintain and optimize infrastructure performance, monitoring key system metrics including network I/O, disk I/O, memory allocation, and compute resource utilization.
• Contribute to key development, testing, deployment, validation, maintenance, and update activities.

Quality, Compliance, and Documentation

• Improve and enforce procedures for work efficiency, quality, and compliance.
• Lead and manage the technical documentation's creation and maintenance/update for all DSPE DevOps owned software tools and systems, for example, design specifications, software verification and validation (V&V) protocols and reports, deployment/update/maintenance records, user guides, etc.
• Create training materials, and contribute to training activities, on DSPE DevOps owned software tools and systems.

Cross-Functional

• Engage proactively and directly with engineering and operational stakeholders to align infrastructure roadmaps, resolve technical dependencies, and report platform performance metrics.
• Represent the DSPE DevOps team in stakeholder meetings.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Minimal Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Bioinformatics, or a related field.  Advanced degrees preferred.
• Minimal 10 years of relevant industry experience for candidates with only a Bachelor's Degree.  Minimal 8 years of relevant industry experience for candidates with a Master's Degree.  Minimal 4 years of relevant industry experience for candidates with a Doctorate degree.
• Minimal 3 years of working experience in a highly regulated environment, e.g., CLIA and/or FDA compliant settings.
• Minimal 3 years of management experience leading a DevOps team, or a software development team.
• Demonstrable experience in designing, delivering, and maintaining/updating custom-developed software tools or systems for production environments, preferable in high-throughput settings (e.g., heavy traffic and/or high computation load).
• Demonstrable experience in creating software design specification documents, verification and validation documents, and user manuals.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES:

• Excellent Python programming skills, with substantial cloud application and/or automation system development experience.
• Proficient with RDBMS systems such as PostgreSQL and/or MySQL, and substantial working experience in for-production database-based application development.
• Working knowledge in optimizing system architecture and individual components for performance, scalability, and/or reliability.
• Proficiency in tool/system performance evaluation methods, and in-depth understanding of key factors, such as RAM, Disk IO, Network IO's impact on system/tool's performance.
• Proficiency with AWS, and substantial working experience in developing for-production software tools/systems using AWS services.
• Proficiency in SDLC and software development and testing methodologies.
• Proficient Linux command line skills, and past Linux application development experience.
• Past experience and working knowledge in genomics and bioinformatics technologies.
• Good understanding and past working experience with genomics data, such as FASTQ, BAM, VCF files.
• Proficiency in Git workflow and version control systems like GitHub and/or GitLab.
• Past experience in developing automation solutions.
• Preferred but not required: IaC skills and experiences, such as CloudFormation, Terraform, and/or Ansible.
• Good documentation practices and coding style.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong interpersonal skills.
• Strong integrity.
• Team player.