Bioinformatics Training Officer in Heidelberg bei European Molecular Biology Laboratory

EMBL is Europe’s life sciences laboratory – an intergovernmental organisation with more than 110 independent research groups and service teams covering the spectrum of molecular biology. It operates across six sites in Heidelberg (headquarters), Barcelona, Cambridge, Grenoble, Hamburg and Rome. Our mission is to perform basic research in molecular biology; train scientists, students and visitors at all levels; offer vital services to scientists in the public and private sectors within the member states; develop new instruments and methods; and engage actively in technology transfer.

Are you passionate about computational training in the life sciences and wish to focus your career on the management and coordination of training programs? We are looking for a team member who will support the newly funded “German Competence Centre Cloud Technologies for Data Management and -Processing (de.KCD)”, embedded in the EMBL Data Science Centre, and in synergy with EMBL’s long-term scientific and outreach programme.

The Data Science Centre was launched in February 2022 to promote cutting-edge research and services in Data Science across all of EMBL and will ensure that biological research data at our multi-site organisation are expertly processed, integrated, annotated, and openly managed to support and foster EMBL’s missions.

Within EMBL, the EMBL Data Science Centre, with its Bio-IT Project, supports the growing number of computational biology researchers and bioinformaticians at the institute and beyond in terms of expert training. We have, for this purpose, created an extensive programme of internal and external training, established internal platforms and resources, organised occasional events and meeting series. This programme acts and grows in synergy with external and pan-European initiatives, such as ELIXIR, and with national programmes in data infrastructure, such as the German de.NBI project.

The German initiative de.KCD consists of 8 partners, and pools existing expertise in the field of data management and analysis technologies in the cloud. These are made available to a broad user base,in various scientific fields and at different research locations. Training materials need to be made sustainable for scientists from diverse disciplines interested in or utilising cloud technologies

The successful candidate will work as part of the EMBL Data Science Centre and with stakeholders across the de.KCD consortium (with partners at the Universities of Heidelberg, Bielefeld, Freiburg, Tübingen, Gießen, as well as DKFZ and Charité), to contribute to the de.KCD project’s aims and deliverables. The successful candidate will also contribute to the Bio-IT Project of the EMBL Data Science Centre. This will entail overseeing the entire training process: starting from the development of a training programme, to the design of training material and resources for data management and data processing using cloud technologies. It also will entail providing training in various formats (e.g. summer schools, hackathons and practical courses).

Your tasks include:

• Developing collaboratively high quality training materials;
• Participating in computational training courses/workshops/study groups;
• Conceptualising concepts for making training material sustainable;
• Communicating technical concepts;
• Engaging with scientific communities, with the ability to work both independently and collaboratively depending on the context;
• Utilise project management tools to collaboratively manage de.KCD activities;
• Awareness of latest developments in computational research, in particular using cloud technologies and data science;

Contract duration: 3 years

Grading: 4-5: depending on experience and qualifications (monthly salary starting from 3.485,44 EUR after tax + other paid benefits)

Reference number: HD02512

• Experience in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, or related fields; a PhD will be considered as an advantage
• Proficient oral and written communication skills (English);
• Sensitivity to stakeholders needs and enthusiastic team-working spirit;
• Willingness to participate, as part of a team, in consortium projects;
• Keen interest, experience and/or formal qualifications in teaching computational research skills (e.g. Carpentries, RStudio instructor certification, etc.);
• Working knowledge of programming/scripting languages such as Python, R, Bash and of scientific computing concepts such as version control, cloud computing, cluster computing, workflow manag