Relation
Associate Director Data Engineering
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Associate Director - Data Engineering
About Relation
Relation is a sector defining TechBio company developing transformational medicines, with technology at our core. Our ambition is to understand human biology in unprecedented ways, discovering therapies to treat some of life’s most devastating diseases. We leverage single-cell multi-omics from patient tissue, functional assays, and machine learning to drive disease understanding, from cause to cure.
We are scaling rapidly and building a team of exceptional individuals to push the boundaries of drug discovery. You will work in highly interdisciplinary teams where biology, computation, and engineering come together to solve complex problems that have not been solved before. Our state-of-the-art wet and dry labs in the heart of London are designed to accelerate this integration and translate insight into impact.
We are committed to building diverse and inclusive teams. Relation is an equal opportunities employer and does not discriminate on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, marital or civil partnership status, gender reassignment, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, disability, or age.
By joining Relation, you will help define how medicines are discovered and deliver meaningful impact for patients.
The opportunity
Relation is offering an outstanding opportunity for an Associate Director, Data Engineering, to lead our recently established Data Platform team. As Relation grows its scientific and machine learning capabilities, we are at an inflection point and are scaling our data processing infrastructure to meet the needs of our ambitious scientific research agenda. Our Data Platform as a key enablement layer at the heart of our platform which integrates state-of-the art wet and dry labs to deliver novel biological insight and real world impact.
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Day to day, you will
- Define and evolve Relation’s unified data platform strategy, in partnership with colleagues across Labs, Engineering, Data Science and Machine Learning
- Treat the data platform as a product, ensuring it reliably meets the needs of Relation’s engineers and scientists
- Lead, hire, and develop a high-performing team of Data Engineers
- Manage the end-to-end data flow from lab instruments to our information processing systems
- Optimize and oversee scientific compute pipelines using Nextflow and Seqera Platform to ensure scalability and reproducibility
- Enforce data governance standards and ensure all information assets—spanning internal wet-lab data, external R&D sources, derived data and ML artefacts—are FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) with automated lineage and provenance
- Drive operational excellence through robust CI/CD, testing frameworks for ETLs, and production-grade SDKs
- Own Relation’s data infrastructure security posture
Professionally, you will have
- A background in bioinformatics or data engineering with significant experience working in high-performing, interdisciplinary technical teams.
- Familiarity with modern data orchestration and infrastructure tools, including cloud systems (AWS/GCP/Azure), Kubernetes, and orchestration frameworks such as Nextflow and Dagster.
- Advanced programming skills in at least one of Python or Rust, with a track record of shipping scalable, well-tested code in a data-intensive or scientific research environment.
- Strong cross-functional coordination skills with a proven ability to bridge the gap between the wet lab, computational science requirements, and core engineering infrastructure.
- A good understanding of data governance frameworks and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles.
- Knowledge of software engineering best practices and Data/Platform as a product thinking.
- Bonus experience: Exposure to relevant compliance frameworks such as ISO 27001, SOC 2, or GDPR in a research or clinical biotech context.
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Personally, you:
- Are comfortable working in a matrixed environment, balancing multiple stakeholders and contributing effectively across teams.
- Take ownership of your work, proactively seek opportunities to contribute, and enable others to do their best work.
- Communicate openly and directly, give and receive feedback constructively, and handle challenging conversations with respect.
- Actively seek out diverse perspectives, build strong working relationships, and contribute to shared goals across teams.
- Embrace challenges with openness and resilience, set high standards for yourself, and strive to deliver meaningful outcomes.
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