Bioinformatics Apprentice

About the Role

As our Bioinformatics Apprentice, you'll be instrumental in building, supporting, and maintaining the computational backbone that powers Gordian's discovery engine, while working shoulder-to-shoulder with the scientists whose questions that backbone exists to answer. This role sits at the intersection of biology and software: you'll need an understanding of the biology behind our in vivo screening data, paired with the coding skills to build and maintain the pipelines that turn that data into insight.

This apprenticeship offers a unique experience in early-stage biotech, allowing you to refine technical skills while undertaking substantive projects that expand your knowledge of both science and the business of science. As a full-time team member, you will collaborate closely with disease specialists, gene therapists, and data teams in a collaborative matrix environment. You will gain an insider's perspective into a rapidly growing startup and see how software engineering directly accelerates biotech discovery, taking our platform from concept to delivering insights that drive drug development.

What You’ll Learn

• Scientific Grounding: Deepen your understanding of single cell sequencing and molecular biology, learning how to translate open scientific questions into abstract computational systems.
• Production-Grade Code: Learn to write robust, scalable code for biological data.
• Cloud Infrastructure: Gain hands-on experience with Google Cloud and architecting systems for real-time data processing.
• Workflow Orchestration & Containerization: Utilize tools to manage complex computational systems and process in vivo screening data.
• High-Performance Computing (HPC): Manage HPC clusters to support massive genomic datasets.
• Scientific Insight: See how high-dimensional screening data is transformed into practical insight through interactive tools, in close partnership with our biologists.

Beyond technical skills, you will gain exposure to startup operations and the adaptability required to build a fast-moving company. This includes learning through company lunch and learns, monthly industry happy hours, and 1:1 time with our founders.

Requirements

• A background in either computer science, biology, or bioinformatics, with motivation and interest in developing across these areas.
• A grounding in biology: at minimum, coursework or research experience beyond intro-level classes, ideally with exposure to the biological wet-lab bench, how biological questions get asked, and what methods or approaches are used to unlock answers.
• Real coding experience, particularly in Python, beyond just a single class—whether through coursework, research, or personal projects.
• Experience operating a Linux/Unix-based system beyond just a single class—whether through coursework, research, internship, or personal projects.
• Curiosity and motivation to learn when you don’t know the biology or the exact computational approach.
• Genuine excitement to sharpen your biology, cloud, and data infrastructure skills (GCP, GitHub, Nextflow, and similar). Prior hands-on experience is a strong plus, but real interest and aptitude are prioritized.
• A desire to do your best work, immerse yourself, and excel alongside inspiring colleagues.
• A passion for playing a key role in an early-stage startup: a fast-paced environment full of both uncertainty and new challenges, demanding relentless resourcefulness but offering opportunities and excitement.
• Organizational skills with a history of managing and collaborating on time-sensitive projects across multiple teams.
• Ability to articulate how this apprenticeship supports your long-term development at the intersection of biology and software.

Note: We're open to candidates at both the undergraduate and master's level. If you're coming in with a master's-level depth of experience in both biology and infrastructure, let us know—there may be a path to a more senior scope within the apprenticeship.

About Gordian Biotechnology

Gordian Biotechnology is a therapeutics company whose mission is to cure age-related disease and help people wake up every morning more capable than the day before. Traditional ex vivo screening methods have failed to produce effective treatments, as age-related diseases have complex causes that include interactions with the aged environment.

To address this problem, Gordian’s Mosaic Screening pools interventions in living animals, producing datasets with causal validation for hundreds of targets in the living context of disease and mapped to human patients. This data lets us make the most informed choices on new ideas for treating complex diseases and move validated targets into drug development. We are running this discovery engine in successive indication areas, currently focused on cardiometabolic, to map the in vivo effects of every druggable target across every relevant organ. We then develop drugs and run clinical trials, both internally and in collaboration with multiple partners. By pooling the data from each program, we can start to identify medicines with broad impact on the multimorbidity and decline caused by aging.

Our Culture & Values

Our mission is audacious, and the path will be full of both challenges and excitement. Two things characterize the Gordian experience:

• Team: We work as a team, with ownership in our own roles and trust in each other. Transparency is key—we set clear goals, visibly connecting individuals and teams to our company objectives. This empowers each of us to make autonomous decisions about our work, knowing how they affect the bigger picture. Our communication happens out in the open, with feedback given and received from a perspective of helping each other grow. We share mistakes and ask for help.
• Extraordinary: Every day, we ask ourselves, “How could this process or outcome be even better?” Knowing our overall mission, we do what we think will make the most progress without asking for permission. We don’t shy away from big challenges or unknown territory—we find a way to excel. Gordian is trying to accomplish something tremendously difficult, and that requires people who care deeply about doing exceptional work. We take ownership, challenge ourselves and each other, and continually raise the bar.

Holding ourselves and each other to that standard has created an environment where each of us grows into a better version of ourselves. We keep meetings to a minimum so people can focus on the science, encourage open collaboration through hands-on experimentation and "pre-mortem" discussions that strengthen experimental design, and make time to connect over weekly team lunches. We also encourage people to unplug with an unlimited vacation policy. The combination of mission-focus, high expectations, and enabling people to thrive has created an environment that talent finds rewarding, as evidenced by a voluntary attrition of only ~6%/yr.