Principal Bioinformatics Scientist

Veracyte · San Diego, California, United States; South San Francisco, California, United States

  • Senior
  • Full-time
  • $184,000 – $210,000
  • Posted 2026-09-01
  • Confirmed live on 25 September 2026

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Job description

At Veracyte, we offer exciting career opportunities for those interested in joining a pioneering team that is committed to transforming cancer care for patients across the globe. Working at Veracyte enables our employees to not only make a meaningful impact on the lives of patients, but to also learn and grow within a purpose driven environment. This is what we call the Veracyte way – it’s about how we work together, guided by our values, to give clinicians the insights they need to help patients make life-changing decisions.

Our Values:

• We Seek A Better Way: We pursue bold ideas, embrace complexity, and keep pushing forward.

• We Make It Happen: We act with urgency, deliver with excellence, and always find a way.

• We Are Stronger Together: We engage with empathy, align around what's best for Veracyte, and celebrate as one team.

• We Care Deeply: We show up with integrity, kindness, and respect for one another.

Job Description:

We are seeking a highly experienced and motivated Principal Bioinformatics Scientist to lead the bioinformatics strategy, design, and development of next-generation minimal residual disease (MRD) laboratory-developed tests (LDTs). This role is a senior technical leadership position responsible for shaping assay concepts, driving analytical development and validation, and partnering closely with wet-lab, clinical, quality, regulatory, and software teams to deliver robust, clinically actionable MRD diagnostics for multiple indications.

The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in NGS-based oncology assays, strong understanding of ctDNA biology and a proven track record of industry assay development under design control. This individual will serve as a scientific and technical leader, owning assay bioinformatics from concept through analytical validation and launch.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Scientific & Technical Leadership

• Lead bioinformatics strategy for MRD assay design, development, optimization, and lifecycle management for LDTs developed under CAP/CLIA quality systems.

• Serve as the bioinformatics owner, driving study design, data analysis, performance characterization, and decision-making throughout development.

• Apply deep domain knowledge in cancer genomics, ctDNA biology, and NGS technologies to inform assay architecture, variant detection strategies, and error suppression approaches.

Assay Development & Validation

• Design and execute analytical studies to evaluate assay performance, including accuracy, limit of detection, and reproducibility, in collaboration with wet-lab and biostatistics partners.

• Develop, validate, and maintain scalable, production-ready bioinformatics pipelines for MRD analysis, including QC, variant calling, MRD calling logic, and reporting.

• Lead benchmarking and optimization of computational methods, including background error modeling, and longitudinal MRD tracking.

• Ensure compliance with standards (CAP/CLIA, FDA, IVDR) throughout the bioinformatics development lifecycle, including rigorous testing and documentation.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with molecular biology, assay development, QA/RA, clinical, and software engineering teams to ensure bioinformatics solutions are aligned with assay design, regulatory expectations, and operational constraints.

• Facilitate successful production pipeline deployment by working closely with infrastructure and engineering teams

• Contribute to regulatory submissions and audits by providing technical documentation and validation report, and responses to audits or regulatory inquiries.

Mentorship & Influence

• Mentor junior scientists by providing technical and scientific guidance, helping raise the overall bar of assay development rigor and execution.

• Communicate complex analytical concepts and results clearly to both computational and non-computational stakeholders, including senior leadership.

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE:

• Ph.D. in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Genomics, Biostatistics, or a closely related quantitative field.

• Minimum 8 years of total relevant experience, with at least 5 years of direct industry experience in biotech, diagnostics, or regulated healthcare environments.

• Demonstrated experience leading NGS‑based assay development for clinical diagnostics. Hands-on experience with ctDNA-based MRD assays, including personalized or tumor-informed approaches.

• Strong programming skills in Python, with experience developing reproducible, production‑grade analysis pipelines, including experience with SDLC best practices.

• Proven experience working in design‑controlled, regulated environments (CAP/CLIA LDT, IVD, or equivalent).

• Proficiency in development of novel bioinformatics methodologies, and algorithms development, including benchmarking of computational methods.

• Track record of working with wet lab scientists on iterative experiment design, execution, analysis, and interpretation as a tightly integrated team.

• Demon

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