Director/VP of Bioinformatics

Loyal is a well-funded, SF-based biotech startup developing drugs and assays to help dogs live longer, healthier lives. Founded in early 2020, we're building a consumer-first pharmaceutical company around a set of deeply innovative products. We have a female, first-gen Founder/CEO, and our team is diverse and driven.

We’re looking for a Director or Vice President of Bioinformatics to take our data science, data engineering and bioinformatics teams to the next level. We have a number of projects ranging in scope from very basic science to possible consumer products that require strong leadership to ensure they reach their fullest potential. Our team is built to do science at scale, combining innovative engineers from the world’s largest companies with creative scientists from top institutions, both looking to expand what is possible. The culture is exciting and collaborative and we move very fast. As the leader of this team, you will play a key role in building and organizing the teams, architecting systems that allow us to derive insights from biological data, mentoring up and coming managers, and ensuring a strong culture of innovation and collaboration.

You will also work closely with company leadership to help shape and define future directions, projects and resourcing. A strong technical background and proven track record is required, however willingness to learn and teach others is more important than experience with a specific system. This role reports to the CEO.

Desired experience

• • Demonstrated leadership of diverse data teams with delivery of key results
  • Experience mentoring up and coming managers
  • Demonstrated excellence in communicating and collaborating within a cross-functional teams
  • Strong systems, database, algorithm and general CS fundamentals
  • Built and/or managed large-scale end-to-end ETL pipelines, preference for delivering results to frontend APIs
  • Experience with multi-modal data models, preference for experience with human or other regulated data types (HIPAA, etc)
  • Experience architecting scalable systems in AWS, Google Cloud or Azure
  • Experience with, and understanding of, modern statistics and machine learning
  • Fundamental understanding of at least one omics modality
  • Preference for strong publication record in Computational Biology, however not a requirement

How you work and think

• • Strong desire to work collaboratively within a team and across teams
  • Always looking for opportunities to assist others
  • Desire to learn and grow in ability and responsibilities
  • Willingness to learn whatever tool is necessary
  • Process driven - creates frameworks to tackle challenging problems
  • Mission driven - able to put day to day work in the context of the overall goals of the company
  • Track record of communicating with technical and non-technical stakeholders
  • Able to work in a fast paced and ever-changing environment
  • Empathy to others and low ego

What you might not like about this role

• • We are still relatively new, therefore many systems are either not in place or being iterated on. Tolerance for ambiguity and a bit of chaos is key
  • The strategy can change rapidly based on the science
  • As with other companies we are still figuring out hybrid remote working and communication
  • We operate on the “enemy of great is perfect” rule - it is better to try something first and iterate than take too much time to make it perfect
  • There is a lot going on in a lot of different teams and it is easy to get overwhelmed

Health | Good health is critical to every other human (and animal!) experience. We believe health is a fundamental right and are dedicating our lives to maximizing health and developing better medicines for the worst diseases.

Seeking & Feedback Loops | Uniquely in biology, there is a predetermined truth of whether a specific drug will work or not — we just have to catch up with biology! We seek out this truth and do not shy away from inconvenient truths. This holds for personal development too: we are always searching for feedback loops and embody a perpetual growth mindset.

Transparency | We believe full transparency in thoughts, opinions, intentions, and actions (both good ones and mistakes) is a better way to build a business and work together.

Morality & Empathy | We are developing medicines that may one day be given to a living animal, medicines that if designed badly could hurt that animal instead of help. This is a huge responsibility and should be respected as such. Our work needs to adhere to the strictest moral code and always integrate empathy for the patient.

Kindness | Great business(wo)men do not need to be ruthless — you can execute excellently with kindness.

Dog gifs | We love them.