Head of Data Platform Engineering

Biotechnology is rewriting life as we know it, from the medicines we take, to the crops we grow, the materials we wear, and the household goods that we rely on every day. But moving at the new speed of science requires better technology.

Benchling’s mission is to unlock the power of biotechnology. The world’s most innovative biotech companies use Benchling’s R&D Cloud to power the development of breakthrough products and accelerate time to milestone and market. 

Come help us bring modern software to modern science.

ROLE OVERVIEW

Benchling is the central repository of our customers’ data on life sciences research and development and Benchling’s data platform is a key pillar of our product offering and value proposition to our customers. Benchling is both a scientific system of record and an analytical platform, and Benchling’s data platform directly serves both external customers, through platform APIs and data warehouses, and internal customers building Benchling’s application suite.

In this role, you will build the organization that builds and manages Benchling’s data infrastructure, creates tools for domain modeling, and uses those tools to create APIs to serve both as the data access layer for our own application development and also as an externally consumable API for extension and integration with other systems. The right leader has a deep product engineering in big data & analytics, coupled with an understanding of running internally facing service teams.

The ideal candidate has the dynamic range to come in close to ground-level and grow the team quickly through a combination of direct management and managing managers, while hiring managers and ICs establish a second line of management to scale the org to 4-5 teams in a 12- to 18-month timeframe.

Bringing scientists’ cutting-edge science to market requires software that ships fast and reliably, and meets the quality guidelines to ensure it is safe and meets its intended use.

YOUR IMPACT

• Build and manage the organization responsible for Benchling’s data platform.
• Build and enhance the foundational data layer of Benchling’s platform, including data infrastructure, application and analytical data stores, tools for domain modeling and API generation, and customer-facing data management products.
• Hire and manage managers, technical leaders, and individual engineers.
• Be a part of a strong ‘first-team’ peer group of leaders within Benchling’s Platform and Infrastructure Engineering organization.
• Work closely with teams and leaders across Benchling to enable application development on this platform.
• Manage risks and resolve issues that affect release scope, schedule and quality
• Facilitate resolution of customer issues
• Make Benchling a great place to work by actively supporting career development, growth, and mentoring of individuals, and by fostering a fun and inclusive team where everyone feels welcome

ABOUT YOU

• You have at least 5-7 years of experience in engineering management roles, and prior experience as a software or data engineer. Your experience includes growing teams, including hiring and managing leaders and individual contributors.
• 5+ years of experience as an Engineering Manager, with proven skills in scaling their teams
• 5+ years of experience as a software engineer, distributed systems engineer
• You have hands-on experience with and knowledge about building data infrastructure and/or services. An ideal candidate would have worked with a combination of analytical systems, such as data warehouses, and online systems of record.
• Experience building customer-facing data systems or products in an enterprise context is a plus.
• Experience with and knowledge of both distributed systems like Kafka and Spark, and with transactional RDMS systems such as PostgreSQL, is a plus.
• A strong understanding of cloud computing or experience with AWS is a plus.
• A bachelor’s degree or equivalent in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field, is a plus

#LI-SS2

Benchling welcomes everyone. 

We believe diversity enriches our team so we hire people with a wide range of identities, backgrounds, and experiences. Even if you don't meet 100% of the qualifications for this job, we strongly encourage you to apply.

We are an equal opportunity employer. That means we don’t discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.

Our leadership principles guide how all Benchlings can lead by example:

• Admit mistakes and shortcomings
• Deliver results
• Disagree and commit
• Obsess over customers
• Rely on work ethic
• Show empathy
• Recruit and develop the best
• Sweat the details
• Think and communicate clearly
• Unite around the mission

For applicants for U.S.-based roles only: All new hires in the United States are required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and to provide proof of vaccination prior to their first day of employment. If you are unable to be vaccinated for medical or religious reasons, we will explore potential reasonable accommodations; however, Benchling may not be able to grant such accommodations in all cases if doing so would cause undue hardship.

If you are a Colorado, Connecticut, or New York City resident: Please contact us by emailing salary-inquiries@benchling.com to receive compensation and benefits information for this role. Please include the job title in the subject line of the email.