Senior Data Scientist (Bioinformatics)

Exagen is a patient-focused and discovery-driven life sciences company dedicated to transforming the care continuum for patients suffering from debilitating and chronic autoimmune diseases.  Our goal is to enable rheumatologists to improve care for patients through the differential diagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring of complex autoimmune and autoimmune-related diseases, including lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.  By leveraging our proprietary Cell-Bound Complement Activation Products, or CB-CAPs, technology, we help get to the real cause of a patient’s symptoms and guide their journey to improved health.

About the Opportunity:

In this role, the Senior Data Scientist, Bioinformatics will collaborate with a small, dynamic cross-functional team, including data scientists, business development, and wet-laboratory proteomic scientists on the development of diagnostics. The position involves conducting bioinformatics analyses of clinical studies, laboratory data, and product development efforts. The candidate will perform in silico work to enable the creation of novel blood-based and urine-based biomarkers for assessing organ damage and other aspects of disease progression caused by rheumatologic diseases. Responsibilities include data mining, developing machine learning models for biomarker discovery and disease classification, designing and performing analyses on large clinical datasets, and integrating external data from academic collaborators and third-party platforms. The role requires a high level of creativity, technical expertise, and collaboration across multiple disciplines.

Location note: This is a hybrid role and requires on-site work at our Carlsbad office. Candidates must live within commuting distance. 

Note: Other duties may be assigned.

• Plan, execute, and continuously evaluate data-driven projects aligned with business objectives
• Develop and validate machine learning models for biomarker discovery, disease prediction, and classification in rheumatologic diseases.
• Analyze datasets for urine-based biomarkers and their applications in disease diagnosis and management.
• Develops solutions that leverage machine learning techniques to address business requirements, extract actionable insights, and guide decision-making processes.
• Responsible for producing presentations and reports to communicate analysis summaries to the bioinformatics team and other cross-functional stakeholders
• Advises departmental managers on opportunities and gaps in current capabilities for data insights
• Work with large datasets of clinical studies to design, develop, and perform analysis for internal and external uses.
• Conduct data analyses for experiments and projects, including clinical studies in the planning stage.
• Integrate datasets from external sources, including academic collaborators and third-party platforms.
• Collaborate with other scientific staff members within and outside the R&D group, including academic collaborators, external consultants, and scientists.
• Maintain accurate and complete records.
• Comply with all company SOPs and safety standards.
• Contribute to scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals and present at conferences in collaboration with academic collaborators.
• Maintain confidentiality of customer and patient information.

Minimum Qualifications:

• M.S. or Ph.D. degree in Bioinformatics, Biostatistics, or related fields with programming experience.
• A minimum of 2 years of industry or postdoctoral experience. 
• Experience analyzing data using common descriptive statistics and developing machine learning classifiers.
• Proficiency in programming language (e.g., Python or R) for data processing, analytics, statistical analysis, and machine learning
• Strong technical and theoretical background in data structures, analysis methods, and experimental design.
• Experience developing and applying machine learning algorithms to clinical and laboratory datasets, including biomarker discovery.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently, prioritize multiple projects, and problem solve under tight deadlines
• Proficiency at searching and assimilating current medical/proteomic literature.
• Able to work independently and as a part of an interdisciplinary research group.
• Proficient in Database (SQL Server, MySQL) and Server (Windows, Linux) Management. 
• Good planning and basic project management skills.
• Ability to present data and plans to technical or non-technical audiences.
• Strong communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Proficiency with version control systems and either R or SciPy preferred.
• Experience working with proteomic and RNA expression databases. 
• Proficiency in writing code in R, Python, SQL and other database-friendly programming languages.

Salary range: $120,000 - $160,000