Crop Breeding Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Job Summary:
Advanta Seeds is a global seed business focused on innovation and technology to address food insecurity and climate change. They are seeking a motivated Research Scientist in Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics to support their crop breeding program, focusing on genomic data processing and analysis, as well as laboratory work involving assay design and validation.
Responsibilities:
• Develop and support computational pipelines for genomic data processing and analysis.
• Perform sequence analysis, read processing, and variant discovery from next-generation sequencing datasets.
• Generate high-quality variant datasets, including VCF files, for downstream research and breeding applications.
• Perform genome assembly analyses (including scaffold-level assembly where applicable) and compare assemblies and genomic regions across multiple reference genomes.
• Identify SNPs and other sequence variants relevant to research and breeding objectives.
• A bility to design primers informed by comparative genomic analysis across multiple reference genomes.
• Support difficult marker-related problems by providing sequence-based analysis and computational interpretation.
• Retrieve, organize, and analyze genomic and associated metadata from relational databases, including SQL-based systems.
• Write scripts and automated workflows in Python, R, bash, or similar languages to streamline analysis and reporting.
• Document methods, results, and workflows clearly and reproducibly, and present findings to internal teams.
• Work independently on assigned analyses while coordinating with the manager and relevant collaborators as needed.
• Support projects across multiple crops, with the ability to perform analysis across species.
Qualifications:
Required:
• PhD in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Genomics, Genetics, Plant Biology, or a closely related field.
• Strong computational genomics background with hands-on experience in several of the following areas: variant calling, genome assembly, pipeline development, primer design.
• Strong programming skills, with the ability to independently develop and troubleshoot scripts and workflows in a Linux environment.
• Proficiency in Python and at least one additional analysis language or environment such as R or bash.
• Experience working in Linux-based computational environments.
• Experience handling large-scale genomics datasets.
• Experience generating, processing, and interpreting sequence-based outputs such as assemblies, alignments, and VCF files.
• Experience comparing genomic data across multiple references, assemblies, or sequence datasets.
• Working knowledge of molecular biology sufficient to support marker and primer design decisions, even if the role is not bench-based.
• Familiarity with relational databases and the ability to retrieve and manipulate data using SQL.
• Strong organizational skills, scientific judgment, and the ability to manage multiple tasks with limited supervision.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to document analyses clearly.
• Cultural sensitivity and ability to work effectively in a diverse team environment.
• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States. Advanta does not offer employment sponsorship for this position.
Preferred:
• Experience in plant genomics, crop genetics, or computational support of breeding programs.
• Experience analyzing data from multiple crop species or transferring analysis strategies across species.
• Experience with comparative genomics across diverse germplasm or multiple reference genomes.
• Experience building reproducible workflows for routine genomic analysis.
• Experience supporting molecular marker development through computational sequence analysis.
• Ability to grow into an increasingly independent role and take ownership of technically demanding analyses.
Company:
Advanta Seeds specializes in the development of farming solutions and technology in plant breeding. It is a sub-organization of UPL. Founded in 1994, the company is headquartered in Dubai, ARE, with a team of 1001-5000 employees. The company is currently Late Stage.