Bachelor's degree in a scientific field; advanced degree preferred.
5+ years in a technical role with scientific or research data.
Strong communication skills to bridge technical and researcher needs.
Experience with FAIR data practices in a scientific domain.
Proven ability to collaborate with non-reporting researchers to obtain data.
Self-starter with a knack for process improvement and initiative.
Responsibilities
Serve as the main technical contact for data generators, facilitating onboarding and resolving issues.
Analyze data generation processes to propose efficient metadata delivery methods.
Develop use cases for data products in collaboration with researchers and AI developers.
Support research teams in adopting best practices for data sharing.
Define standards for complete and valid metadata records, leveraging existing frameworks.
Implement automated checks for metadata quality and completeness.
Build and maintain data ingestion, validation, and indexing pipelines.
Benefits
Comprehensive living documentation for data repository interactions.
Best practices for data release and compliance with open science principles.
Collaboration with a growing data team and software engineers.
Opportunities to integrate research data with open science knowledge graphs.
Full Job Description
The role
We are hiring a Member of Technical Staff to build data products with Astera's Open Science team. You will work with the team to design data curation, data validation, data infrastructure, and the eventual data product. This is a frontline and highly cross-functional role. You will spend as much time with the data contributors as you do wrangling data and writing code. We want someone who has seen data efforts succeed and fail, who knows the landscape of repositories and metadata standards, and who can turn a raw data dump into something structured, validated and used for research. The ideal candidate brings expertise in technical program management, experience building data products, a collaborative spirit, and a commitment to open science.
Responsibilities
Technical Program Management
Serve as the main technical contact for data generators. Run onboarding, answer questions and unblock data submissions.
Learn how different projects generate and store data, then propose the lowest-effort path to deliver complete metadata.
Develop concrete use cases for each data product with researchers and AI developers: who will query it, what question they bring, and what result they need back. Use them to set priorities, test the product against real workflows, and show partners what their metadata makes possible.
Support research teams in thinking through best practices for community adoption of their data.
Data Product Development
Define what a complete, valid metadata record looks, working from existing standards when possible rather than inventing parallel ones.
Write automated checks for metadata completeness and metadata validity.
Report quality per data partner in a form they can act on: which fields are missing, which records fail, and what changed since the last ingest.
Build ingestion, validation and indexing pipelines, from harvesting partner metadata to serving it through a search interface and API.
Collaboration and General Tasks
Work closely with Astera's small but growing data team to maintain comprehensive living documentation for data repository interactions, establish best practices for data release timing and methods, metadata tools and standards, and ensure compliance with open science principles and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data standards.
Collaborate across the organization, especially with software engineers, to identify and address technical gaps in data infrastructure, ensuring researchers have the tools and support needed to manage their data effectively.
Support the integration of research data with open science knowledge graphs and ensure compatibility with emerging AI and machine learning ecosystems that rely on high-quality scientific data.
Effectively communicate updates, new initiatives, decision processes, and other items through presentations and written products.
Navigate the balance between Astera's commitment to radically open science and the practical realities of responsible data sharing, developing thoughtful approaches for situations where research sensitivity, privacy requirements, safety considerations, or dual-use risks demand more nuanced data release strategies, and knowing when to escalate particularly challenging cases to leadership while maintaining the organization's open science mission.
Qualifications
Required
Bachelor's degree in a scientific field such as biology, chemistry, physics, math, computer science, data science, information science, or related field; advanced degree preferred.
5+ years working with scientific or research data in a technical role: data engineering, research software, data curation or lab informatics.
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to translate between technical data requirements and researcher needs.
Experience with FAIR data practices in at least one scientific domain, applied to real data.
A track record of getting data out of other people: working with researchers or partner teams who do not report to you, and getting them to deliver.
High agency self-starter with the ability to work independently, identify opportunities for process improvement, and drive initiatives forward without constant oversight.
Preferred
Domain background in materials science, chemistry, physics, or neuroscience.
Experience operating a data catalog or search index.
Contributions to open-source software or community data standards.
Location
This role is in-person in Emeryville, CA.
Compensation
The successful candidate will receive a competitive compensation package, commensurate with their experience.
