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Co-Op, Research Software Engineering

Boston

About us:

Ascidian is redefining the treatment of disease by rewriting RNA.

Ascidian Therapeutics was founded to rewrite RNA by editing and replacing human exons. We were inspired by ocean creatures, called Ascidians, who are primordial ancestors of vertebrates. To grow from larvae to adults, ascidians re-engineer their transcriptome through RNA editing via trans-splicing and alternative splicing.

In our Brighton/Boston labs, RNA biology meets today’s cutting-edge genomics, computational biology, and deep-sequencing technologies to create a new class of medicines that address the underlying causes of disease. We welcome you to come join our vibrant team and help us lead the way into a new gene therapy era.

Your role on the team:

Ascidian Therapeutics is seeking a Co-Op/Intern with an interest in software engineering for biology to join our team. Under the guidance of an experienced mentor, the Co-Op will create software tools that help biomedical scientists streamline experimental design processes and efficiently extract insights from their data. The candidate must be creative, enthusiastic, detail-oriented, have excellent communication skills, and be willing to work in a dynamic entrepreneurial environment.

General Requirements: 

  • Candidate must be currently enrolled in a BS or MS degree in a scientific discipline
    • Computer Science or Data Science majors preferred, but majors in engineering or biological/quantitative/physical sciences with programming skills welcome to apply
  • Candidate must be available to work full-time for up to (6) consecutive months beginning in Winter 2025
  • Experience in the following areas necessary:
    • Familiarity with shell scripting and command line usage
    • Proficiency in a scripting language (e.g. Python, R, Perl)
  • Interest in full-stack software development, including frontend, backend, databases, cloud services, etc
  • Ability to communicate with and learn from experts in a variety of scientific fields
  • Enthusiasm for new ideas and a curiosity towards scientific entrepreneurship
  • Self-motivation and adaptability to evolving project priorities and responsibilities
  • This role requires the student to work from the 80 Guest St. Boston, MA site throughout the duration of the Co-op/Intern term

 

Additional skills/experience beneficial, but not required:

  • Frontend/Javascript
  • Familiarity with writing containerized code (Docker) on Cloud Services (e.g. AWS, GCP)
  • Familiarity with Databases
  • Understanding of biotech related sciences (e.g. Molecular biology, Bioinformatics, Statistics, Machine Learning)
  • Previous work on team-based software projects

Responsibilities: 

  • Contribute new software features using standard source code control practices (Git)
  • Maintain, refactor, and bugfix existing software
  • Follow and enforce rigorous software development and documentation standards
  • Assist laboratory scientists with learning, usage, and improvement of custom software
  • Work independently and collaboratively with multi-disciplinary teams to solve complex problems

Benefits:

We provide a vibrant startup environment where every employee contributes to our culture and science. We offer a generous total rewards plan that includes competitive compensation, stock options, and benefits. Our benefits include a top-tier health and wellness plan, commuter reimbursement or paid monthly parking, tuition or loan reimbursement, career development opportunities and so much more.

A final note - we highly encourage you to apply for our position, even if you are not sure you meet all the requirements. Everyone has unique talents, and at Ascidian, we look not only at your experience but your potential. We know that the best teams consist of diverse backgrounds, so please apply!

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