Senior Backend Software Engineer - Pathogen

Led by a world-class faculty of scientists, technologists, policy makers, economists and entrepreneurs, the Ellison Institute of Technology aims to develop and deploy commercially sustainable solutions to solve some of humanity’s most enduring challenges. Our work is guided by four Humane Endeavours: Health, Medical Science & Generative Biology, Food Security & Sustainable Agriculture, Climate Change & Managing Atmospheric CO2 and Artificial Intelligence & Robotics.

Set for completion in 2027, the EIT Campus in Littlemore will include more than 300,000 sq ft of research laboratories, educational and gathering spaces. Fuelled by growing ambition and the strength of Oxford’s science ecosystem, EIT is now expanding its footprint to a 2 million sq ft Campus across the western part of The Oxford Science Park. Designed by Foster + Partners led by Lord Norman Foster, this will become a transformative workplace for up to 7,000 people, with autonomous laboratories, purpose-built laboratories including a plant sciences building and dynamic spaces to spark interdisciplinary collaboration.

The Pathogen project highlights EIT’s transformative approach, using Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) and Oracle’s cloud technology to create a global pathogen metagenomics system. This initiative aims to improve diagnostics, provide early epidemic warnings, and guide treatments by profiling antimicrobial resistance. The goal is to deliver certified diagnostic tools for widespread use in labs, hospitals, and public health.

EIT fosters a culture of collaboration, innovation, and resilience, valuing diverse expertise to drive sustainable solutions to humanity’s enduring challenges.

We are hiring a Senior Backend Software Engineer to develop the platform services that store and provide access to data. This is a hands-on role (70–80%) with leadership responsibilities focused on engineering excellence, raising standards in security, reliability, observability, and quality.

You’ll be part of a cross-functional team working alongside architects, platform engineers, and data engineers to build infrastructure that empowers EIT’s scientists to access the data they need for groundbreaking bioinformatics pipelines and data products.

Key responsibilities include:

• Designing, developing, and maintaining high-performance, scalable, and secure backend services and APIs using technologies such as Python and NodeJS.
• Collaborating with science teams, full stack engineers, and data engineers to understand data requirements and integrate user needs into backend services.
• Building and maintaining RESTful APIs to surface data in the platform, ensuring it is findable and accessible in line with FAIR principles.
• Developing APIs that support future interoperability and federation for pathogen diagnostics, epidemiology monitoring, and research.
• Working with data engineers to build pipelines and processes that store and transform platform data for easy consumption.
• Implementing and managing data storage solutions including data lakes, data warehouses, and databases such as object storage, Oracle Autonomous Database, and PostgreSQL.
• Supporting innovation efforts by exploring new technologies such as vector databases to enable search and AI use cases.
• Using big data technologies like Kafka, Iceberg, and Parquet, along with managed databases including PostgreSQL and Oracle vector databases.
• Operating, monitoring, and maintaining Oracle Cloud infrastructure to ensure backend services are highly available, scalable, and secure.
• Collaborating with DevSecOps engineers to automate deployments and follow best-practice CI/CD.
• Documenting and communicating APIs to engineers and bioinformaticians to support pipeline development and user-facing data products.
• Promoting clean, standardized, maintainable, testable, and reusable code through technical standards.
• Ensuring solutions are documented and aligned with architecture governance processes.
• Implementing monitoring, logging, and alerting systems to maintain platform health and performance.
• Line managing and supporting the development of a high-performing team of backend engineers focused on the data platform.

Essential knowledge, skills, and experience:

• Proven experience as a backend cloud engineer, data engineer, or similar role.
• Proficiency in backend programming languages and API frameworks such as Python, NodeJS, Django, and FastAPI.
• Experience building flexible APIs using GraphQL.
• Expertise in at least one cloud platform and its managed data services.
• Familiarity with big data technologies such as Parquet, Iceberg, and streaming platforms like Kafka.
• Strong knowledge of database systems, SQL data model design, and query optimization.
• Experience with containerization using Kubernetes and Docker.
• Proven ability to deliver scalable and performant data services using microservice architectures.
• Experience developing scalable architectures using containerized and serverless approaches such as Oracle Functions and AWS Lambda.
• Team management experience and a track record of fostering a collaborative, high-performance culture.
• Understanding of Agile methodologies and sprint-based workflows.
• Commitment to knowledge sharing.

Desirable knowledge, skills, and experience:

• Knowledge of genomics.
• Experience with Oracle OCI.
• Understanding of federation standards for genomics such as GA4GH.
• Familiarity with healthcare clinical data and standards such as OMOP and SNOMED.

Key attributes for success in this role:

• Strong collaboration skills.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment.
• Excellent problem-solving, analytical, and communication abilities.
• Eagerness to learn and upskill in new technologies.
• Willingness to be hands-on in exploring new technologies and developing proofs of concept.

We offer the following salary and benefits:

• Enhanced holiday pay
• Pension
• Life Assurance
• Income Protection
• Private Medical Insurance
• Hospital Cash Plan
• Therapy Services
• Perk Box
• Electrical Car Scheme

Why work for EIT:

At the Ellison Institute, we believe a collaborative, inclusive team is key to our success. We are building a supportive environment where creative risks are encouraged, and everyone feels heard. Valuing emotional intelligence, empathy, respect, and resilience, we encourage people to be curious and to have a shared commitment to excellence. Join us and make an impact!

Terms of Appointment:

• You must have the right to work permanently in the UK with a willingness to travel as necessary.
• You will live in, or within easy commuting distance of, Oxford.
• During peak periods, some longer hours may be required and some working across multiple time zones due to the global nature of the programme.