Director, Research and Development

Ginkgo Bioworks is a publicly traded (NYSE: $DNA), high-growth biotechnology company based in Boston’s Seaport District, that is redesigning the living world to solve some of the globe’s growing challenges in health, energy, food, material, and more. Our mission to “make biology easier to engineer” is poised to disrupt multiple industries by leveraging our innovative data, automation, and scale capabilities in biological engineering. 
Ginkgo believes that if we are to grow a thriving, sustainable bioeconomy, we must also grow a new market in biosecurity. Our biosecurity and public health initiative, Concentric by Ginkgo, launched a nationwide emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic, providing end-to-end pathogen monitoring services to schools, communities, and travelers. As we continue to scale Concentric, our work is also evolving into new and exciting directions, from global expansion to the integration of new technologies and capabilities, including our Traveler-Based Genomic Surveillance Plan with the CDC. 

Responsibilities

• Lead a team of scientists and support personnel focused on method development, validation, and technology scouting & assessment
• Guide R&D technical plans and contribute to funding opportunities proposal writing
• Participate in Business Development calls with prospective international and government customers as a technical subject matter expert
• Keep up to date with bioinformatics and lab network capabilities, help identify gaps and areas for improvement
• Through literature review and interactions with internal and external subject matter experts, maintain strong knowledge in relevant scientific areas such as pathogen genetics, detection methods, and associated sample types
• Keep an entrepreneurial mindset; identify and propose new technical platform capabilities for the biosurveillance roadmap
• Perform deep technical assessments of new technologies, assays, and devices (commercially available or in development by other entities)
• Act as a technical advisor and partner to leadership team; contribute to Technical Platform strategy
• Provide leadership and project management for external partner and Foundry R&D projects

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in related field 
• 10+ years of relevant experience 
• NGS and assay development experience 
• 10% travel

Preferred Capabilities and Experience

• Strong analytical skills, with an ability to develop fact-based and informed opinions, demonstrated commercial experience
• Experience leading teams in a matrix environment
• Possess strong initiative and ability to identify issues and create solutions - strong bias for action
• Ability to lead and execute projects / initiatives and achieve goals - without direct supervision - in a fast-paced environment, on time, while delivering high quality results
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, emotional intelligence and an ability to work across organizational boundaries

Note on culture: Concentric by Ginkgo is a high energy, positive and fast paced environment where new challenges and opportunities arise every day, so this opportunity is ideal for people who thrive in those kinds of environments, and for people who like lots of variety in their day. There are lots of opportunities to learn and grow. The team is motivated by doing high impact work in service to society. To get a sense of the culture at Ginkgo, read some articles in Grow by Ginkgo, the company magazine we produce, which tells the story of synthetic biology in a Ginkgo-authentic way.
To learn more about Ginkgo, check out some recent press:What is it really like to take your company public via a SPAC? One Boston biotech shares its journey (Fortune)Ginkgo Bioworks resizes the definition of going big in biotech, raising $2.5B in a record SPAC deal that weighs in with a whopping $15B-plus valuation (Endpoints News)Ginkgo Bioworks CEO on scaling up Covid-19 testing: ‘If we try, we can win’ (CNBC)Ginkgo raises $70 million to ramp up COVID-19 testing for employers, universities (Boston Globe)Ginkgo Bioworks Redirects Its Biotech Platform to Coronavirus (Wall Stre