Data Engineer II – Data Integration – Data & Technology (Brain Science)

The mission of the Allen Institute is to unlock the complexities of bioscience and advance our knowledge to improve human health. Using an open science, multi-scale, team-oriented approach, the Allen Institute focuses on accelerating foundational research, developing standards and models, and cultivating new ideas to make a broad, transformational impact on science.

The mission of the Allen Institute for Brain Science is to accelerate the understanding of how the human brain works in health and disease. Using a big science approach, we generate useful public resources, drive technological and analytical advances, and discover fundamental brain properties through integration of experiments, modeling and theory.

We are looking for a Data Engineer to join our Data Integration Team. This position will work closely with scientists, ontologists, engineering teams, and consortia members to develop solutions for data integration and interoperability to support data ingest, organization, analysis and reuse. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in data modeling and data integration and will bring a passion for linking data and knowledge to help create a useful compendium of information for neuroscientists. You will understand the complexity of combining biological data from heterogenous sources, the difficulty of standardizing data and have experience in addressing some of these issues in scientific work.  

To gain more insight on the projects you will impact, please visit the Allen Brain Map data portal (portal.brain-map.org) and BICCN portal (biccn.org)

The Allen Institute believes that team science significantly benefits from the participation of diverse voices, experiences, and backgrounds. High-quality science can only be produced when it includes different perspectives. We are committed to increasing diversity across every team and encourage people from all backgrounds to apply for this role.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Perform data wrangling, data curation, and data validation and serve as a liaison and technical support for consortium scientists
• Lead efforts in collaboration with domain experts to prototype data structures
• Lead development of data management best practices and policies; contribute to development of data governance strategy and data life cycle
• Lead and contribute to efforts with community partners and scientists to develop and document data standards, including data quality and formats
• Assess data and product needs to define data requirements for data integration; facilitate requirements review
• Document data ingest processes and curation SOPs
• Build consensus for data integration efforts across platforms and organizations and advocate for FAIR principles
• Produce data reports and write data release notes
• Participate in outreach efforts to curate, publish, and publicize highly dimensional biomedical data sets, research tools, and publications
• Codevelop requirements and support creation of infrastructure for tools to support data ingest, validation and dashboarding
• Identify, investigate and solve data quality issues on an ongoing basis

Note: Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. This description reflects management’s assignment of essential functions; it does not proscribe or restrict the tasks that may be assigned.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant technical discipline (e.g., engineering, computer science, informatics, neuroscience, genomics) or equivalent combination of degree and experience
• 1 or more years equivalent experience
• Proficiency with Python or equivalent programming language

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree (MLIS, MS, PhD) in a relevant technical discipline (e.g., neuroscience, genomics, physics, information science, applied math)
• At least 2 years’ experience with scientific data modeling, schema development, metadata management, data governance or data quality technologies
• Knowledge of OWL, RDF, PROV, JSON-LD, graph databases
• Experience with non-relational/unstructured, graph or big data database development/design
• In-depth understanding of some of the data domains and associated standards that are relevant for neuroscience, imaging, and genomics
• Familiarity with scientific data modeling, metadata management, data governance and data quality technologies
• History of contributing to open source and/or community-based projects
• Hands-on knowledge of cloud-based infrastructure (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and experience using data-related services
• Familiarity with DMBoK
• Strong interpersonal, communication and presentation skills
• Strong project management and organizational skills
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills combined with capacity for complex, detail-oriented work

Work Environment

• Occasional exposure to laboratory atmosphere - possible exposure to chemical, biological or other hazardous substances

Physical Demands

• Sitting, standing, bending, squatting as found in typical office environment

Position Type/Expected Hours of Work

• This role is currently able to work remotely due to COVID-19 and our focus on employee safety. We are a Washington State employer, and remote work must be performed in Washington State. We continue to evaluate the safest options for our employees. As restrictions are lifted in relation to COVID-19, this role will return to work in a hybrid work environment.

Additional Eligibility Qualifications

• In keeping with our focus on employee safety, all employees must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment unless a medical or religious exemption is approved. All employees will be required to keep their vaccination status up to date according to CDC guidance and our policy.

Additional Comments

• **Please note, this opportunity offers relocation assistance**

It is the policy of the Allen Institute to provide equal employment opportunity (EEO) to all persons regardless of age, color, national origin, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, race, religion, creed, gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, genetic information, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. In addition, the Allen Institute will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.