Principal R&D Informatics and Scientific Systems Engineer

• Scientific background in biology, chemistry, or a related life sciences discipline, with a strong understanding of biotech, pharmaceutical, or life sciences R&D workflows.
• Experience configuring or supporting an ELN, LIMS, registry, or scientific workflow platform (e.g., Benchling or comparable systems).
• Familiarity with scientific platform APIs, data warehouses, and integration patterns into downstream databases and analytics (e.g., the Benchling REST API and Data Warehouse).
• Data modeling skills, including designing and maintaining schemas and entity relationships and mapping them consistently across integrated scientific and engineering systems.
• Hands-on fluency with scientific data structures, metadata, sample tracking, assay workflows, and data capture.
• Experience using AI tools (or a demonstrated willingness and aptitude to learn them) and interest in applying AI to scientific and informatics workflows.
• Familiarity with AWS cloud services (e.g., S3, EC2, Lambda, and RDS) and how they support scientific data storage, integration, and compute workflows.
• Working proficiency in Python for scripting, data manipulation, and automating or integrating scientific systems and workflows.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving ability, exceptional attention to detail, and the judgment to work through ambiguous, cross-functional problems independently.
• Ability to work directly with scientists and translate experimental processes into system requirements.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration across wet lab, dry lab, software engineering, and computational biology.
• Strong documentation, communication, and prioritization skills.

• Hands-on experience with AI tools such as LLM-based assistants, AI coding tools, or AI-enabled scientific software.
• Familiarity with software engineering practices: version control (git), testing, release management, change control.
• Experience with genomics, sequencing, molecular biology, gene editing, or screening domains.
• Familiarity with BI tools and data visualization.

• Owning hands-on configuration, support, and continuous improvement of our scientific software environment, including our ELN/registry platform (currently Benchling): registry, entities, requests, assays, results schemas, and metadata structures.
• Owning scientific data models and schemas, and ensuring they map consistently across the ELN and integrated scientific and engineering systems. Partnering with Software Engineering to integrate scientific data into downstream databases and analytics.
• Partnering with wet lab and dry lab teams to understand experimental processes, sample tracking, assay data capture, and sequencing workflows, and translating them into platform configuration.
• Supporting and enabling scientific AI tooling, helping scientists adopt AI capabilities within our scientific systems, providing training and guidance, and collecting feedback.
• Defining and enforcing scientific data capture standards, metadata consistency, workflow consistency, and change management for scientific systems.
• Providing user support, training, documentation, troubleshooting, and adoption support.
• Troubleshooting and solving problems directly, working through ambiguous issues across systems, data, and scientific workflows with rigor and attention to detail.
• Identifying opportunities to simplify workflows, reduce manual effort, and improve data quality.

• Scientists have reliable, well-supported systems that reflect how R&D work is performed.
• Scientific systems are maintained, documented, and improved through clear, repeatable processes.
• Scientific data is captured consistently and is cleanly consumable by engineering and computational teams.
• AI tools are thoughtfully adopted and integrated into scientific workflows where they add real value.
• Scientific systems become less dependent on individual knowledge and more sustainable as team-owned platforms.

This role is positioned to grow with the organization. As our R&D footprint, data infrastructure, and use of AI expand, there is clear opportunity to take on broader scope, deeper technical ownership, and increased leadership responsibility.

You are a scientifically minded systems expert who enjoys working at the intersection of research, technology, and innovation. You have experience supporting scientific software platforms and understand how R&D teams generate, manage, and use data throughout the research lifecycle. You are comfortable partnering directly with scientists, computational biologists, and software engineers to translate scientific workflows into effective system solutions.

As a hands-on member of the Research organization, you will own and continuously improve our scientific systems ecosystem, including electronic lab notebooks, sample and data management platforms, workflow enablement tools, and emerging AI-powered solutions. You are a strong problem solver who enjoys configuring systems, improving processes, and learning new technologies that help accelerate scientific discovery.

All inquiries regarding the posted position should be directed to the Talent Partner (see below). Interested individuals must apply directly to be considered for the opening. 

David Tefft is a senior engineering leader with more than 20 years of experience building software for biotech and clinical and manufacturing labs, specializing in LIMS, data platforms, and integrations for regulated environments. As Senior Director of Software Engineering and Lab Automation at Tessera Therapeutics, he leads the delivery of lab-facing software while partnering closely with wet-lab and automation teams. Across earlier roles at Gritstone Oncology, N-of-One, and Good Start Genetics, he built and led engineering, QA, and support teams of up to 20 people. He is known for aligning stakeholders across Lab Ops, Automation, Quality, and IT, and for translating complex scientific workflows into reliable products. David holds a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Ben Hoogheem – Senior Director, Head of Talent Management

As Head of Talent Management at Tessera Therapeutics, Ben leads Tessera’s talent strategy across talent acquisition, performance management, and talent mobility.

Ben began his career as an in vivo Pharmacologist, which gave him a lasting appreciation for the rigor, creativity, and collaboration that drive scientific discovery. That foundation continues to shape how he helps build organizations designed to enable science thrive.

Ben is focused on aligning exceptional people with bold science – creating the structure, clarity, and culture that empower teams to scale effectively and achieve meaningful impact.

Tessera Therapeutics is pioneering Gene Writing™— a new biotechnology designed to offer scientists and clinicians the ability to write small and large therapeutic messages into the genome, thereby curing diseases at their source. Gene Writing holds the potential to become a new category in genetic medicine, building upon recent breakthroughs in gene therapy and gene editing while eliminating important limitations in their reach, utilization, and efficacy.

Tessera is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, marital status, genetics, protected veteran status, citizenship status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic identified by federal, state, or local laws where we operate. Tessera provides reasonable accommodations to qualified applicants and employees with disabilities. To begin an interactive dialogue with Tessera regarding a reasonable accommodation in connection with the hiring process and/or to perform the essential functions of the position for which the applicant has applied, please contact the recruiter or Accommodations@tesseratx.com

Recruitment & Staffing Agencies:  Tessera Therapeutics does not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to Tessera Therapeutics or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Tessera Therapeutics’ internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of Tessera Therapeutics, and Tessera Therapeutics will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.