Backend Software Developer

We’re seeking a driven Backend Software Developer to join the Open Targets team at EMBL-EBI, contributing to the Open Psychiatry Project (OPP). In this role, you’ll build and evolve cutting-edge informatics tools that support the discovery and prioritisation of drug targets. Working with modern technologies in a collaborative, international environment, you’ll tackle complex technical challenges alongside a multidisciplinary team of experts.

The OPP is an ambitious initiative focused on making mental health omics data more accessible, connected, and impactful. The OPP brings together leading partners across academia and healthcare, including EMBL-EBI, the Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh and Swansea, Health Innovation East, and Bitfount.

By integrating real-world evidence into the Open Targets Platform, the project aims to accelerate the development of more effective treatments for mental health conditions. Open Targets is a partnership between world leading academic institutes EMBL-EBI and the Wellcome Sanger Institute, and pharmaceutical industry partners (Genentech, GSK, MSD, Pfizer, Sanofi).

As part of the Open Targets Core team, you’ll collaborate with computational biologists, bioinformaticians, and engineers to design and deliver scalable, cloud-first software at the intersection of biomedical data and drug discovery. Within the OPP team, you’ll work closely with Dr Ellen McDonagh (line manager and co-lead) and Dr Mary-Ellen Lynall (lead investigator for OPP, University of Cambridge), alongside a project manager and bioinformatician. You’ll also partner with researchers, clinicians, and lived experience experts to shape solutions that meet real-world needs and drive meaningful impact.

Your role 

You will lead on enhancing the Open Targets Platform to incorporate additional features to power discovery science, drug target identification, and stakeholder accessibility for mental health disorders. Working as part of a dynamic, collaborative and international team with members that come from various professional backgrounds, you will be responsible for:

• Lead the backend development for the OPP, including working to scope and prioritise feature development.
• Be the key contact between the OPP and Open Targets groups, interact closely with other members of the OPP team to understand the infrastructure, data and software needs and help translate these into the Open Targets release cycle planning
• Work with other OPP team members to develop data intake and metadata strategy, as well as containerised analyses that can smoothly link to Open Targets pipelines.
• Attend regular OPP meetings and contribute to programme strategy.
• Writing clean, efficient and readable code to support our Python based data pipeline
• Contributing to the codebase of our GraphQL API, which is being rewritten in Rust
• Supporting our GCP infrastructure, deployed with Terraform and Helm
• Taking ownership of the design and development of new features and pipelines
• Resolving complex issues with independent problem-solving and self-management
• Assisting the Open Targets data team on the execution of our data pipelines for regular release cycles of the Platform
• You will have the opportunity to engage in knowledge sharing activities and contributing technical expertise to our Community and blog

You have 

• Qualifications in computer science, software development, or a related field
• Good day-to-day computer engineer knowledge: building and designing software, CI/CD tools, Git skills, debugging methods and comfort with frequent deployments
• Expert Python knowledge and familiarity with the modern python ecosystem tools like uv, ruff, and type annotations
• A good grasp of modern statically typed programming language paradigms, Rust being a valued plus
• Experience in a cloud environment
• Experience in independent problem-solving and examples of resolving complex issues
• Fluency in written and spoken English
• Ability to effectively communicate ideas or issues to those with technical and non-technical backgrounds
• A collaborative attitude and work well with team members from multidisciplinary backgrounds

You may also have

• Experience with NoSQL (OpenSearch) and SQL (ClickHouse) databases
• Experience working flexibility, remotely, and adapting quickly to changes in priority in an agile environment
• Previous experience working in the research or life science industries
• Knowledge of human genetics, genomics, and/or drug discovery and mental health/psychiatric conditions; or interest in learning about these topics
• Previous experience working with sensitive clinical data and data containers
• Interest in promoting your work and the ways we have solved complex challenges

We are open to applicants at different career stages, but we are keen to find someone who wants to work with modern technologies and embrace industry standards in order to tackle complex challenges in large scale data, drug discovery and informatics and has an interest in working within a project team to address the needs of the psychiatric disease community.

Additional information:
Our flagship application, the Open Targets Platform, is open-source and powered by a Python data pipeline running on Apache Airflow. The data is served by a Scala API that we are rewriting in Rust; and displayed in a modern React Web Application. The whole stack lives in Kubernetes clusters hosted on Google Cloud Platform; and we are using Prometheus, Grafana and Loki to provide observability on it.

You will be based at EMBL-EBI on the Genome campus, Hinxton, and will also be required to attend meetings with the OPP team members, project stakeholders and occasionally patient groups (who will contribute to project development) at Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge.

Contract length: Project-based contract with maximum duration of 30 months, start date dependent.

Salary: Grade 5.0 – Monthly salary starting at £3,303.40 per month after tax but excluding pension and insurance contributions. Plus, generous benefits.

Next steps: This vacancy is published from Tuesday, 24th March with a scheduled closing date of Tuesday, 21st April and we invite you to apply as soon as possible. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and we reserve the right to close the advert sooner than published in the event that we identify a suitable candidate sooner.