Company:
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a serious and growing global health challenge, affecting approximately 1 in 7 people worldwide. In the absence of effective treatments, patients may progress to kidney failure, requiring dialysis or transplantation—placing a significant burden on patients, families, and healthcare systems. While recent advances have benefited certain subsets of kidney disease patients, many common forms of CKD still lack effective therapeutic options.
Borealis was founded on the belief that the convergence of scientific and translational breakthroughs can unlock the potential of RNA therapeutics to address some of the most rare and underserved kidney diseases—and beyond. Borealis builds on the success of Chinook Therapeutics, a kidney disease company with a research site in Vancouver that was acquired by Novartis in 2023 for $3.5 billion. The Borealis team has strong leadership and academic advisors with deep experience and expertise in both kidney disease and RNA therapeutics. Headquartered in Vancouver, BC, Borealis operates state-of-the-art wet labs equipped for molecular and cellular biology, in vivo pharmacology, chemistry, DMPK, bioinformatics, and analytical sciences.
We are a creative and innovative team that strives for excellence in all we do and have fun along the way. Our core focus is on helping patients and advancing science. For more information on Borealis, check out our sites https://borealisbio.com & https://www.linkedin.com/company/borealis-biosciences-inc.
We seek applicants from all backgrounds to ensure we get the best, most innovative talent on our team. We are building a diverse and inclusive workforce – come and be a part of our growth! We strongly encourage candidates with less traditional backgrounds or those who may meet the qualifications in a different way to apply.
Position:
The Director, Research Engineering is a service-oriented, forward-thinking team leader who is responsible for overseeing the collaborative design and development of scalable, innovative, cloud-based data and knowledge management solutions across the Research organization. Research Engineering is part of Translational Systems Biology and Data Sciences (TSBDS) department at Borealis Biosciences. This pivotal role requires a combination of technical expertise, strategic vision, and collaborative leadership to identify and support LLM-based solutions that drive scientific advancements in drug discovery and development. Experience with LLM technologies will be crucial for developing innovative solutions and driving experimentation in scientific research and drug development. The Director oversees work within the Research Engineering team and works closely with subject matter experts from the different functional teams within Research and IT teams to ensure that architectural design, resourcing, product development and delivery align with business objectives, scientific needs, and technical best practices.
Reports to the Executive Director, Translational Systems Biology & Data Science (TSBDS).

Responsibilities include:

• Lead and oversee work within the TSBDS team and work closely with the different functional and IT teams to ensure that architectural design, resourcing, product development and delivery align with business objectives, scientific needs, and technical best practices
• Drive key architectural decision-making via workshops and brainstorming sessions to solve for end use requirements and use cases
• Develop strategic architectural roadmaps and guidelines for engineers and developers to adopt
• Pick appropriate technologies for new solutions and ensure integration with enterprise infrastructure.
• Merge technical infrastructure where needed, defining consistent back end and front-end technologies.
• Own the early robust build phase of successful prototypes and lead the transition to iterative development and maintenance
• Explore and pilot new LLM technologies to assess their potential integration into existing architecture
• Provide thought leadership on emerging LLM and AI models and capabilities and drive experimentation in service to Borealis use cases
• Perform risk assessments on new or existing cloud architectures to identify cost, scalability, or any other infrastructure management concerns
• Propose opportunities for enhanced operational support of new or existing infrastructure through cloud-native monitoring and testing suites.
• Map use cases to leverage existing capabilities and define solutions for new capabilities.

Location:

• This position is remote (within US or Canada) with preference to candidates in the Greater Vancouver or Greater Seattle area.

Education, Experience, and Skills:

• Master’s or PhD with a technology focus (IT, Computer Science, or a related field) or a scientific focus (Biology, Chemistry, or a related field) with at least 15 years of programming and architecture experience in Biotech/Pharma
• Combined 10+ years’ experience with AWS and/or LIMS platform management (Dotmatics, Benchling, Genedata, etc.)
• 5+ years of leadership experience
• Proven track record of successfully managing technical projects and leading cross-functional teams
• Advanced proficiency with Python, SQL, R, database design, and at least one front end development framework (React, Angular, Streamlit, or similar)
• Experience building and maintaining cloud-native applications using core AWS services such as IAM, S3, Athena, Lambda, Fargate, Bedrock, OpenSearch, etc.
• Experience building or enhancing a laboratory informatics system (LIMS) specifically in a research or drug development context
• Experience in large-scale scientific systems design and integration patterns, including mapping use cases to best practice architectural and integration patterns
• Experience working with LLM capabilities including use of industry leading models, RAG approaches, agentic frameworks, LLM testing frameworks, etc.
• Ability to deliver performance evaluations, benchmarking, and troubleshooting of AI or LLM-based applications
• Excellent communication skills and demonstrated experience interacting with technical product designers to gather solution architecture requirements, and ability to perform designated tasks in a timely manner
• Ability to multitask in a fast-paced research and technical environment.
• Demonstrated capacity for independent thinking and care about the underlying biological questions and advancement of science for patient benefit

Preferred:

• Experience with predictive modeling approaches and/or preparing data for predictive modeling
• Experience processing and/or analyzing large public or proprietary biological patient and assay datasets including transcriptomic and proteomic datasets
• Experience developing user applications in frameworks like Shiny, React, etc. is a plus
• Experience with therapeutic oligonucleotides (ASO, siRNAs)

Compensation: The annual salary range is $204,000 - $252,000 and Borealis Bio provides competitive benefits including retirement matching, extended medical, dental, vision and a Wellness/Health Spending Account. Actual base salary and title/level will be determined based on the qualifications of the successful candidate.
Borealis is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and we prohibit discrimination or harassment of any kind. We are committed to fostering an environment where ALL people are welcome and supported. We cultivate a culture of inclusion for all employees that respects their individual strengths, views, and experiences. We believe that our differences enable us to be a better team – one that makes better decisions, drives innovation, and delivers better business results. Creativity and innovation flourish in an environment of openness, inclusion, and mutual respect

• Lead and oversee work within the TSBDS team and work closely with the different functional and IT teams to ensure that architectural design, resourcing, product development and delivery align with business objectives, scientific needs, and technical best practices
• Drive key architectural decision-making via workshops and brainstorming sessions to solve for end use requirements and use cases
• Develop strategic architectural roadmaps and guidelines for engineers and developers to adopt
• Pick appropriate technologies for new solutions and ensure integration with enterprise infrastructure.
• Merge technical infrastructure where needed, defining consistent back end and front-end technologies.
• Own the early robust build phase of successful prototypes and lead the transition to iterative development and maintenance
• Explore and pilot new LLM technologies to assess their potential integration into existing architecture
• Provide thought leadership on emerging LLM and AI models and capabilities and drive experimentation in service to Borealis use cases
• Perform risk assessments on new or existing cloud architectures to identify cost, scalability, or any other infrastructure management concerns
• Propose opportunities for enhanced operational support of new or existing infrastructure through cloud-native monitoring and testing suites.
• Map use cases to leverage existing capabilities and define solutions for new capabilities