Microbiome Bioinformatician – Visualisation and Analytics

Microbiome Bioinformatician – Visualisation and Analytics

We are hiring a Bioinformatician to develop, maintain, and enhance internal analytical applications that enable scientists to explore and interpret microbiome data.

This role combines scientific software development, microbiome data analysis, cloud infrastructure, deployment engineering, and AI-enabled user experiences. You will work with processed microbiome data generated through workflows running on Seven Bridges and build tools that make complex analytical outputs accessible to scientific users.

You will play a key role in maintaining and extending a cloud-based R Shiny platform, supporting data visualization, exploratory analysis, application deployment, and AI-powered interaction with microbiome datasets.

About Excelra

Excelra is a leader in biopharma data and analytics, that uniquely blends scientific understanding with technological expertise. This dual mastery empowers innovative drug discovery and development, transforming research data into actionable insights for groundbreaking discovery.

We have locations in Hyderabad (head offices – India), Ghent (Belgium), London (UK), Utrecht (The Netherlands), and Boston/SFO (US).

www.excelra.com

Responsibilities

• Hybrid

Application Development and Scientific Data Visualization

• Develop, maintain, and enhance an internal R Shiny application used to explore and analyse outputs from microbiome processing workflows.
• Build and maintain interactive plots, tables, and exploratory analysis functionality within the Shiny application.
• Work with processed microbiome data generated through workflows running on Seven Bridges.
• Work with scientific users to understand requirements and translate them into practical application features.
• Maintain the application's AWS-based backend, including reading, writing, and managing processed data objects in Amazon S3.
• Deploy and maintain the application using Amazon ECS, including containerised deployment and troubleshooting of deployment issues.
• Troubleshoot issues spanning application code, data objects, workflow outputs, AWS infrastructure, and deployment.
• Support reliable, scalable, and maintainable deployment processes for scientific applications.

AI Integration and Advanced Analytics

• Maintain and further develop an integrated AI assistant that allows users to query plots, tables, and analytical outputs using natural language.
• Support integration of LLMs and AI-enabled capabilities within scientific applications.
• Contribute to the development of intuitive tools that improve access to microbiome insights and analytical results.
• Collaborate with scientific stakeholders to improve usability and analytical functionality.

Scientific Software Engineering

• Work across the full application stack, including R/Shiny development, scientific data handling, cloud infrastructure, deployment, and AI integration.
• Maintain application code quality through testing, documentation, and version control best practices.
• Contribute to ongoing enhancement of microbiome analytics platforms and associated workflows.
• Support long-term sustainability and continuous improvement of scientific software solutions.

Requirements

• A PhD in Bioscience engineering, Bioinformatics, computer science, Computational Biology, Data Science, Computer Science, Genomics, Systems Biology, or a related discipline– or an MSc with 5+ years of equivalent experience. You can demonstrate this through peer-reviewed publications, contributions to public code repositories, or relevant project work.
• Strong R and Shiny development experience.
• Experience building scientific or data-intensive analytical applications.
• Good understanding of AWS, particularly S3 and ECS.
• Experience with Docker and containerised deployments.
• Strong problem-solving and troubleshooting skills across application, data, and infrastructure layers.
• Experience working with scientific datasets and analytical workflows.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
• Ability to work independently while partnering effectively with multidisciplinary teams.

Preferred

• Familiarity with bioinformatics or microbiome data.
• Experience with MaAsLin, MaAsLin2, or similar statistical analysis approaches.
• Experience integrating LLMs or AI assistants into analytical applications.
• Experience working with Seven Bridges or similar cloud-based workflow platforms.
• Experience developing interactive scientific dashboards and data exploration tools.
• Knowledge of microbiome analysis workflows and associated biological datasets.
• Experience with Git and collaborative software development practices.
• Experience supporting research, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, or life sciences environments.

Benefits

• A challenging job environment with advancement opportunities.
• Flexible hybrid working in an international setting.
• A dynamic company with an open culture, easy communication, and an ambitious vision.
• A rich and global team with a mix of backgrounds, experiences, and expertise.
• Independence and flexibility.
• Opportunities to work on modern scientific software, microbiome analytics, cloud platforms, and AI-enabled research tools.
• An attractive salary package with extra-legal benefits.