Data Engineer

Job Summary

The Brain Aging Network for Cognitive Health (BRANCH) study aims to understand the complex biological, genetic, and lifestyle factors that underlie differential aging trajectories. Our program enrolls hundreds of older adults, who participate in a variety of procedures including blood draws, neuropsychological testing, and neurological exams. The overarching goals are to gain a better understanding of what healthy aging is and identify the earliest changes associated with degenerative brain disease.

The Data Engineer role is a core resource in the BRANCH team and will be critical in bringing thoughtful Data Engineering practices in the space of healthy aging. This position is a rare opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to neurology clinical research via a Data Engineering position.

Data Engineering
In this role, you will work to programmatically build new and expand existing systems for collecting, validating, managing, and preparing high-quality data/sets for use by research scientists and their collaborators. This work will include acquiring access to multi-modal internal and external data sources (applications, relational databases, object stores, large-scale -omic data sets, video libraries, imaging pipelines), developing pipelines to transform all or a subset of the data sources into useful data sets for relevant analyses by research scientists, and feature engineering. In addition, building, testing, and maintaining database pipeline architectures are a necessity along with creating new and expanding existing data validation methods.

Data Analysis
Under the guidance of the research team, you will build bespoke data analysis tools to assist in the communication and access of data sets to internal and external researchers and collaborators. This role will also collaborate with data managers and data scientists at the center to gather and prepare data for analysis.

Data Management
A portion of this role will require basic data management activities such as creating best practices for streamlined data cleaning, data harmonization, manual data wrangling, collecting, organizing, and accessing data for use in creating bespoke data sets. A key responsibility of this role is being responsible for ensuring the integrity of the data.

Security:
Compliance with the institution’s data governance and security policies is a must.  

Reporting:
The Data Engineer will report to Drs. Kramer and Casaletto will have a mentoring relationship with Drs. Paolillo, Rose George, and Joe Hesse.

The final salary and offer components are subject to additional approvals based on UC policy.

To see the salary range for this position (we recommend that you make a note of the job code and use that to look up): TCS Non-Academic Titles Search (https://tcs.ucop.edu/non-academic-titles)

Please note: An offer will take into consideration the experience of the final candidate AND the current salary level of individuals working at UCSF in a similar role.

For roles covered by a bargaining unit agreement, there will be specific rules about where a new hire would be placed on the range.

To learn more about the benefits of working at UCSF, including total compensation, please visit: https://ucnet.universityofcalifornia.edu/compensation-and-benefits/index.html

Department Description

Throughout the Department of Neurology at UCSF, our mission is to deliver superb patient care, to apply state-of-the-art translational research methods to discover the causes of and treatments for human nervous system disorders, and to educate each generation of medical students, neurology residents, and postdoctoral fellows. By fostering cross-disciplinary interactions among scientists around the world, we accelerate the pace of discovery and champion the University's global health initiatives.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a related area and/or equivalent experience/training
• 1-2 years relevant experience
• Understanding of data management operations and database administration, including data modeling, data definition, data conversion, and management of content or unstructured information.
• Knowledge of relevant rules and regulations.
• Demonstrated ability to work with others from diverse backgrounds.
• Demonstrated effective communication and interpersonal skills.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate technical information to technical and non-technical personnel at various levels in the organization.
• Self-motivated and works independently and as part of a team.
• Demonstrated problem-solving skills. Able to learn effectively and meet deadlines.
• Strong organizational skills.
• Strong analytical and design skills, including the ability to abstract information requirements from real-world processes to understand information flows in computer systems.
• Ability to represent relevant information in abstract models. Critical thinking skills and attention to detail.
• Knowledge of best practices around securing protected health information
• Experience working in a research/academic setting
• Experience deploying web services to integrate multi-modal data systems
• Demonstrated ability working with large data sets
• Excellent proficiency in MS Excel
• Familiarity with Relational Database Systems
• Excellent proficiency with query/query languages such as SQL and XQuery
• Intermediate to excellent proficiency in R
• Intermediate to excellent proficiency in Python
• Intermediate proficiency in MATLAB

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated service orientation skills.
• Knowledge of HIPAA
• Basic understanding of genetics, proteomics, and *omics desired    

About UCSF

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It is the only campus in the 10-campus UC system dedicated exclusively to the health sciences. We bring together the world’s leading experts in nearly every area of health. We are home to five Nobel laureates who have advanced the understanding of cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, aging and stem cells.

Pride Values

UCSF is a diverse community made of people with many skills and talents. We seek candidates whose work experience or community service has prepared them to contribute to our commitment to professionalism, respect, integrity, diversity and excellence – also known as our PRIDE values.

In addition to our PRIDE values, UCSF is committed to equity – both in how we deliver care as well as our workforce. We are committed to building a broadly diverse community, nurturing a culture that is welcoming and supportive, and engaging diverse ideas for the provision of culturally competent education, discovery, and patient care. Additional information about UCSF is available at diversity.ucsf.edu

Join us to find a rewarding career contributing to improving healthcare worldwide.

Equal Employment Opportunity

The University of California San Francisco is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, protected veteran or disabled status, or genetic information.

Job Code and Payroll Title

007198 DATA SYS ANL 2

Job Category

Engineering, Professional (Non-Clinical)

Bargaining Unit

99 - Policy-Covered (No Bargaining Unit)

Additional Shift Details

M-F 9am-5pm