Principal Platform Architect

About Karius

Karius is a venture-backed life science startup that is transforming the way pathogens and other microbes are observed throughout the body. By unlocking the information present in microbial cell-free DNA, we're helping doctors quickly solve their most challenging cases, providing industry partners with access to the microbial landscape to accelerate biomarker discovery and clinical trials, discover novel microbes, to ultimately reduce patient suffering worldwide.

Position Summary

Research, development, and operation of Karius’s novel technologies heavily depend on the underlying computing and data infrastructure, software system architecture, and various research and engineering tools (aka, Karius R&D/Ops platform or simply “Platform”). In this critical engineering role, you will collaborate closely with the engineering and science leadership to set the strategic direction for the technology behind this Platform. Then, develop and drive a technology roadmap to develop and operate an extensible, reliable, secure, and scalable Platform.

Why Should You Join Us?

Karius aims to conquer infectious diseases through innovations around genomic sequencing and machine learning. The company’s platform is already delivering unprecedented insights into the microbial landscape, providing clinicians with a comprehensive test capable of identifying more than a thousand pathogens directly from blood, and helping industry accelerate the development of therapeutic solutions. The Karius test we provide today is one of the most advanced solutions available to physicians who aim to deliver better care to many otherwise ineffectively treated patients. Our test is the result of some incredible work done by our scientists, statisticians, engineers, and physicians, all driven by the same mission. You, as part of the Karius team, will be able to see how directly your work has a life-changing impact on people, and at scale.

Reports To: Vice President, Engineering

*This position is not open to agency support at this time. Agencies, please contact [email protected] and not the hiring manager for inquiries.

Location: Redwood City, CA or Hybrid

Primary Responsibilities

• Leading architectural projects from concept to completion, ensuring timely delivery and adherence to budget and quality/regulatory requirements.

• Developing architectural blueprints, frameworks, and guidelines for Platform development and operation.

• Ensuring the architecture meets technical and business requirements including security, performance, interoperability, and scalability.

• Staying current with industry trends and emerging technologies to ensure the • Platform leverages the best technologies that fit the needs.

• Articulating and presenting complex ideas clearly and effectively to technical and business audiences. 

• Developing, documenting, and organizing artifacts such as strategy, technical proposals and designs, and risk assessments. 

• Ensuring Karius’s R&D and engineering staff have the proper infrastructure, tools, and processes to be productive.

• Ensuring the Karius Platform is cloud vendor agnostic, can be provisioned globally using a blueprint as code, and meets regional privacy and security rules and regulations. 

• Enable the Platform to be provisioned for non-Karius laboratories, enabling them to operate Karius products. 

What’s Fun About the Job?

Karius is operating at the edge of what is now known to be possible in infectious disease diagnostics. With that, comes a wave of new and incredible challenges and opportunities. To deliver on that value, you will be tapping into some of the most advanced technologies, architecting and innovating where the current solutions simply don't suffice. You will get to see how much your work really matters.

Travel: Travel required up to 10%.

Physical Requirements

Subject to extended sitting and standing periods, vision to monitor, and moderate noise levels. Work is performed in an office environment.

Position Requirements

Primarily, show us you have successfully built and operated several complex, high-quality, regulated, reliable, and scalable R&D and engineering cloud-native platforms. Convince us that you have the technical, people, and organizational skills to understand and translate complex business and technical requirements into a one-of-a-kind platform that becomes a sustaining competitive advantage for Karius.

• B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Statistics, Biomedical Engineering, Genetics, or a related engineering or science field. Ph.D. in these fields is a big plus.

• 15+ years of engineering experience, 10 of which in leading the development and operation of distributed software systems and cloud-native platforms.

• Proficient in infrastructure-as-code design and tools such as Terraform.

• Deep knowledge and experience in design patterns, implementation, testing, and failure management of distributed systems and microservices. 

• Hands-on experience with cloud-native software development and operations approach; primarily using tools and technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes, and Cloud services to run software services and data analytics jobs.

• Proficient in industry security standards such as NIST CSF/SSDF with hands-on experience implementing and monitoring cloud security controls. 

• Experience with various code flow and DevOps approaches such as gitOps.

• Lead architectural projects from concept to completion, ensuring timely delivery and adherence to budget and quality/regulatory requirements.

• Develop architectural blueprints, frameworks, and guidelines for Platform development and operation.

• Ensure the architecture meets technical and business requirements including security, performance, interoperability, and scalability.

• Stay current with industry trends and emerging technologies to ensure the Platform leverages the best technologies that fit the needs.

• Track record of building mutual trust, exerting cross-functional indirect influence, and leading change. 

• Articulate and present complex ideas clearly and effectively to technical and business audiences. 

• Develop, document, and organize artifacts such as strategy, technical proposals and designs, and risk assessments. 

• Experience in healthcare and life sciences especially developing medical devices is a big plus. 

Personal Qualifications 

We want to add a humble, curious, and collaborative member to our team. At the Karius engineering team, we highly value deep domain expertise, drive for innovation, desire to collaborate, being open to learning and unlearning, and passion for solving hard problems with a meaningful impact on the world. A sense of ownership and personal/group accountability allows us to be a productive and high-performing team. If you share our vision we would like to have you on board.

Disclaimer

The above job description is intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by individuals assigned to this position. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, and skills required. Responsibilities and duties may change or be adjusted to meet the needs of the company, and additional duties may be assigned as necessary. The job description is subject to change at any time at the discretion of Karius.

At Karius, we value a diverse and inclusive workplace and provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and employees and are committed to honor and invest in the full diversity of people, in our hiring, recruiting and development of employees across the Company. All qualified applicants for employment are encouraged to apply and will be considered without regard to an individual’s race, color, sex, gender identity and gender expression (including transgender individuals who are transitioning, have transitioned, or are perceived to be transitioning to the gender with which they identify), religion, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, physical or mental disability, medical condition, family care status, marital status, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, genetic information, military or veteran status, or any other basis protected by federal, state or local laws. If you are unable to submit your application due to a disability, please contact us at [email protected] and we will accommodate qualified individuals with disabilities.