Manager of Bioinformatics (Women's Health and Organ Health)

Natera™ is a global leader in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) testing, dedicated to oncology, women’s health, and organ health. Our aim is to make personalized genetic testing and diagnostics part of the standard of care to protect health and enable earlier and more targeted interventions that lead to longer, healthier lives.

About the role

We are seeking a Manager, Bioinformatics to lead production support for the bioinformatics and data science algorithms behind our Women's Health and Organ Health products. You will lead a team of Data and Bioinformatics Scientists accountable for how those algorithms behave on real samples, owning the interface between that team and the production organization.

The key challenge of this role is resolving inconclusive reports, where a scientist must weigh the full body of evidence to reach a determination. You will determine whether an inconclusive report reflects technical constraints or a data quality issue, and how upstream processes should change so fewer cases arrive inconclusive. You will maintain a catalogue of known patterns so new cases can be matched to settled ones, and use AI to assemble and help interpret evidence at triage.

This role is highly cross-functional, requiring coordination across Production Engineering, Product, the laboratory, and R&D. Success depends on strong communication, negotiation, and consensus-building skills rather than authority. You will define service commitments for the team, including turnaround and coverage expectations, and build the processes and staffing to meet them.

Responsibilities

• Own the support function for our data science and bioinformatics algorithms in production, ensuring answers are accurate and delivered when still useful.
• Lead complex investigations crossing system boundaries, distinguishing biological signal problems from algorithm, data, or infrastructure issues, and identifying the responsible team for fixes.
• Turn one-off investigations into durable rules and design changes to prevent recurring issues.
• Own process validation for pipelines and algorithms as operations change, defining evidence requirements before implementation and maintaining standards under schedule pressure.
• Lead, hire, and develop a team of Data and Bioinformatics Scientists, demonstrating deep systems judgment.
• Partner with Production Engineering, Product, Bio Development, laboratory operations, and Data Science R&D teams to resolve and prevent operational issues.
• Represent algorithm capabilities to dependent teams, negotiating commitments and upstream fixes requiring their agreement.
• Set standards for AI-assisted investigations, defining what conclusions require manual review before inclusion in records.

What Success Looks Like After a Year

• Recurring escalations are reduced, test turnaround time (TAT) is improved, and you can identify which recurring issues were eliminated and how, including upstream fixes and feature requests.
• A service commitment for the function is established, agreed upon by dependent teams, and consistently met.
• Change validation is a defined, repeatable process followed by the team.
• Your scientists handle investigations independently that previously required your intervention.
• The production organization relies on your team for answers, not just as a conduit to other groups, and the team resolves inconclusive reports without escalation.
• Agent-assisted investigation is standard practice, with a clear team-wide standard you established.

Requirements

• M.S. or Ph.D. in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Data Science, or a related technical field. Equivalent work experience is fully considered.
• 5+ years working with genomic or sequencing data, including 2+ years leading people. Relevant experience is counted from the point your work became substantially independent.
• Demonstrated ownership of a support, escalation, or on-call function with defined commitments in a high-stakes environment.
• Experience leading cross-system investigations to resolution, including knowing when to stop.
• Proven ability to reach agreement across organizational lines without authority, such as adopting a standard, resolving competing priorities, or persuading others to adopt a position.

Skills

• Sequencing and bioinformatics fluency to distinguish real pipeline failures from expected outcomes and challenge plausible but incorrect results.
• Ability to reconstruct events from logs, intermediate files, and pipeline outputs, working directly with data.
• Proficiency in Python and SQL for investigations, including pulling records, comparing runs, and building tools to avoid redundant work.
• Experience with change control, including validation and documentation practices that withstand post-implementation review.
• Experience defining a support process, including setting commitments, securing stakeholder agreement, and staffing to meet them.
• People leadership demonstrated through examples: expanding someone’s scope, successful hires, or managing someone into a better-fitting role.
• Understanding of laboratory operations to recognize when data issues originate upstream of your responsibilities.
• Cross-functional relationships that enable escalations to start as conversations rather than tickets, with standing credit among engineering, product, and laboratory teams.
• Senior-level communication, negotiation, and persuasion skills: tailoring explanations for engineers, laboratory directors, and executives, and driving decisions under pressure.

Nice-to-have Skills

• Machine learning or statistical analysis experience applied to genomic data (not required but valuable).
• Experience with cell-free DNA, prenatal, or carrier screening applications.
• Background in an accredited or high-complexity laboratory setting, or familiarity with regulated diagnostic practices and standards.
• Familiarity with workflow systems such as WDL, Nextflow, Snakemake, or Cromwell.
• Experience building observability or alerting systems that proactively identify issues before customer impact.

Pay

Remote USA: $140,000—$175,000 USD. Actual compensation is based on factors including skill set, experience, certifications, and location.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life, and disability plans for eligible employees and dependents.
• Free genetic testing for employees and immediate family members, plus fertility care benefits.
• Pregnancy and baby bonding leave.
• 401k benefits.
• Commuter benefits.
• Generous employee referral program.