Senior Computational Scientist

About the job

Be a Tar Heel!

A global higher education leader in innovative teaching, research and public service, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill consistently ranks as one of the nation’s top public universities. Known for its beautiful campus, world-class medical care, commitment to the arts and top athletic programs, Carolina is an ideal place to teach, work and learn.

One of the best college towns and best places to live in the United States, Chapel Hill has diverse social, cultural, recreation and professional opportunities that span the campus and community.

University employees can choose from a wide range of professional training opportunities for career growth, skill development and lifelong learning and enjoy exclusive perks for numerous retail, restaurant and performing arts discounts, savings on local child care centers and special rates on select campus events. UNC-Chapel Hill offers full-time employees a comprehensive benefits package, paid leave, and a variety of health, life and retirement plans and additional programs that support a healthy work/life balance.

Primary Purpose of Organizational Unit

Our mission is to improve the health and well-being of North Carolinians and others whom we serve. We accomplish this by providing leadership and excellence in the interrelated areas of patient care, education and research.

Patient care: We promote health and provide superb clinical care while maintaining our strong tradition of reaching underserved populations and reducing health disparities across North Carolina and beyond.

Education: We prepare tomorrow`s healthcare professionals and biomedical researchers from all backgrounds by facilitating learning within innovative and integrated curricula and team-oriented interprofessional education to ensure a highly skilled workforce.

Research: We develop and support a rich array of outstanding health sciences research programs, centers and resources. We provide infrastructure and opportunities for collaboration among disciplines throughout and beyond our university to support outstanding research. We foster programs in the areas of basic, translational, mechanistic and population research.

Position Summary

The Senior Computational Scientist, Research Software & Data Platforms, builds and runs the software that the Initiative for Generative Immunotherapy at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center uses to track, process, and share its research data. The position has three main areas of work: automating data handling around the Initiative’s sequencing analyses, building an internal system for tracking samples and data, and developing a public web portal where researchers can browse and download the Initiative’s data.

Data handling covers intake of new data from sequencing cores and collaborators, file and metadata checks, storage and transfer, hand-off of whole-genome (WGS), whole-exome (WES), bulk RNA-seq, and single-cell data to the analysis pipelines, and cataloging and release of pipeline outputs. The pipelines themselves are written and run by the Initiative’s bioinformatics staff and are outside the scope of this position.

The public portal will let users search and filter datasets and sample metadata, view summary plots, and download data in standard formats, one file at a time or in bulk. The internal sample and data management system will link each biospecimen to its clinical annotations, sequencing runs, files, and analysis results, so that any sample can be traced from collection to public release. The position works with bioinformaticians, laboratory staff, and physicians to define requirements, makes sure data sharing follows consent, privacy, and funder rules, and writes the technical sections of grant proposals and papers that describe the Initiative’s data resources.

Minimum Education and Experience Requirements

Master’s or Bachelor’s and 0-2 years’ experience; or will accept a combination of related education and experience in substitution.

Required Qualifications, Competencies, and Experience

• Experience building web applications with a modern front-end framework (e.g., React, Vue, or Svelte, with TypeScript), including interfaces for searching, filtering, and visualizing data.
• Experience automating data handling (ingestion, validation, transfer, cataloging, release) for large scientific or clinical datasets.
• Working knowledge of high-throughput sequencing data, including WGS, WES, bulk RNA-seq, and single-cell, and the associated file formats and standards (e.g., FASTQ, BAM/CRAM, VCF, h5ad/AnnData, GA4GH), enough to work directly with bioinformaticians on pipeline inputs and outputs.
• Facility with modern AI methods and software process automation.
• Attention to detail and ability to work simultaneously on multiple priorities.
• Analytical capabilities, including the ability to think critically and strategically and to propose and implement change.
• Excellent presentation, communication, management, and mentorship skills.

Preferred Qualifications, Competencies, and Experience

• PhD in Computer Science, Bioinformatics/Computational Biology, Data Science, or similar discipline.
• Proficiency in Python, and enough familiarity with workflow managers (e.g., Nextflow, Snakemake) to pass data to and collect results from pipelines run by bioinformatics staff.
• Experience building back-end services and APIs (e.g., FastAPI, Django, Node.js; REST or GraphQL) on relational databases such as PostgreSQL.
• Experience developing or administering sample tracking, LIMS, or research metadata management systems.
• Experience with data visualization libraries (e.g., D3, Plotly, Vega) and with building accessible user interfaces.
• Experience serving large files (e.g., object storage with signed URLs, Globus, Aspera).
• Experience with cloud platforms, containers, scheduled and event-driven jobs, and CI/CD.
• Familiarity with public genomic data portals and repositories (e.g., NCI Genomic Data Commons, cBioPortal, CELLxGENE, GEO, SRA, dbGaP) and FAIR data principles.

Office of Human Resources Contact Information

If you experience any problems accessing the system or have questions about the application process, please contact the Office of Human Resources at (919) 843-2300 or send an email to employment@unc.edu Please note: The Office of Human Resources will not be able to provide specific updates regarding position or application status.