Epoch Biodesign

Epoch Biodesign is a well-funded, venture-backed start-up using biology to make every type of plastic recyclable. Using a unique combination of AI, synthetic biology and green chemistry, we are scaling enzymatic recycling processes to transform unrecyclable plastics into new materials and chemical building blocks. These processes yield substantial reductions in carbon emissions and prevent waste from entering landfill or the environment. They also generate disruptive unit economics, allowing us to scale our solutions quickly to solve this urgent challenge. We’re already working with major players across polymer manufacturing, fashion and automotive, and are scaling up to our first demo production facility in 2025.

We are looking for someone who is ready to help us solve hard and exciting problems as simply and quickly as possible.

You will have a substantial sense of urgency around your work, doing whatever it takes to move at a speed commensurate with the time-sensitive nature of plastic pollution and climate change. Success at Epoch is building the solution to some of humanity’s greatest challenges, without delay.

As a Scientific Data Engineer at Epoch you will:

Drive the development of scientific data management and analysis pipelines across a diverse range of experimental datasets across the Epoch Biodesign R&D activities. Working closely with computational and lab biologists, you will be responsible for requirements gathering, prototyping, development and deployment of software for processing, storing and visualising complex biological datasets. Experience in the life sciences would be preferred, but primarily the ability to learn quickly and adapt to changing requirements are more important.

The role is hybrid, with an expectation that you will be onsite 3-4 days a week.

You will drive forward activities such as:

Acting as primary contact with lab biologists to understand their analytical methods, the nature of their data, and their requirements for analysis, access and visualisation.
Prototyping, developing, and deploying analysis pipelines for a diverse range of biological data acquisition methods.
Full-stack development, including database management, back-end development and front-end UI.
CI/CD and DevOps.
Training users in the use of developed software.

Qualifications And Experience

A degree in bioinformatics, computer science, or a similar numerical field
Previous start-up/scale-up/industry experience
Prior experience of handling and analysis of scientific data, with a preference for ‘omics data methods including mass spectrometry and spectrophotometry
Strong technical background, including skills in Python and related data science libraries, such as NumPy, SciPy, and pandas
Database development and SQL experience
Web development experience, with a preference for Flask and React
Experience with cloud computing, ideally Google Cloud
Skills in automated testing, Git, CI/CD
Excellent interpersonal skills, with demonstrable evidence of working collaboratively in an interdisciplinary environment
An understanding of data security issues

Further skills would be:

Previous experience working closely with lab biologists
Evidence of prior work with next-generation sequencing data
An understanding of cleaning and preprocessing of data for machine learning
Experience of applying ML methods, with knowledge of frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow or Hugging Face
Experience in project management

Benefits And Perks

Epoch Biodesign offers a comprehensive benefits program. At the moment this includes:

Benefits:

A generous allowance of 30 days paid holiday (plus the usual 8 bank holidays)
Meaningful EMI Share Options
A non-contributory pension of 9% employer contribution
Flexible working around the core times of 10am to 4pm
Cycle to work scheme
Tech scheme
Optional private medical insurance with Vitality
Group Income Protection
Group Critical Illness
The opportunity to be part of building something remarkable.

On-the-job perks

Complementary fresh fruit, coffee, tea and snacks
Various staff social activities
Onsite gym

And we are always in the process of reviewing and implementing further benefits and on-the-job perks!

Epoch Biodesign jobs

Scientific Data Engineer