Scientist 1

What if the work you did every day could impact the lives of people you know? Or all of humanity?

At Illumina, we are expanding access to genomic technology to realize health equity for billions of people around the world. Our efforts enable life-changing discoveries that are transforming human health through the early detection and diagnosis of diseases and new treatment options for patients.

Working at Illumina means being part of something bigger than yourself. Every person, in every role, has the opportunity to make a difference. Surrounded by extraordinary people, inspiring leaders, and world changing projects, you will do more and become more than you ever thought possible.

We are currently recruiting for a Scientist 1 in our Reagent Sciences team, who is keen to be part of our culture of constantly pushing forward the boundaries of science and technology to benefit human health.  The successful candidate will carry out scientific R&D in the field of reagent stabilization, including reagent formulation development and lyophilization process characterization to enhance and improve the reagents used in our NGS and microarray consumables.

Position Responsibilities: 

As a Scientist 1 within Illumina’s Reagent Sciences team, you will work as part of a multi-disciplinary research and development team to create new sequencing methods and further Illumina’s technology. You will play an important role in the research and development of new reagents and sequencing consumables with the world-class performance, stability, and robustness characteristics that our customers require. Scientist 1 employees are expected to be able to execute experiments autonomously and be technically proficient. They should be able to execute assigned tasks with oversight as well as troubleshoot procedural problems that may arise. In addition, learning new skills or proposing novel solutions are strongly encouraged.  

As a junior scientist of the Reagent Sciences (Singapore) team, you will collaboratively drive the design and development of high-quality consumable reagents for Illumina sequencing platforms. As Illumina technology continues to grow, you will be a key contributor within multidisciplinary teams tasked to enhance performance and robustness across our entire reagent platform. Your colleagues will count on your technical proficiency and ability to work in multidisciplinary teams to solve complex problems and work on reagent stability issues. You will leverage your experience in biochemistry, enzymology or biochemical engineering to determine the critical parameters for reagents function, stability, and performance, particularly for enzyme-based reagents.

To work as part of the Reagent Sciences team:

Responsibilities include

• Under supervision, designs and performs experiments of moderate to advanced complexity using a broad array of techniques
• Summarizes and reports consistent conclusions, and generates recommendations for follow up experiments and may suggest alternate strategies
• Makes detailed technical observations and documents them in laboratory notebooks and confluence pages, etc.
• Take responsibilities for lab processes such as equipment ownership and contribute towards the successful lab operations
• Write technical reports and communicate effectively to local leadership
• Be a strong team member within multi-disciplinary teams
• Employ and explain statistical methods to drive decisions

Listed responsibilities are an essential, but not exhaustive list, of the usual duties associated with the position. Changes to individual responsibilities may occur due to business needs.

Position Requirements: 

• Highly proficient, productive, and effective in the lab
• Able to understand and execute moderate to advanced complexity experiments containing appropriate controls to anticipate potential problems; able to troubleshoot issues as needed
• Able to understand conclusions from complex experiment data sets
• Strong ability to collaborate across multiple disciplines with team members and stakeholders
• Communicate effectively in various environments with different stakeholders; tailoring communications and presentations as necessary

All listed requirements are deemed as essential functions to this position; however, business conditions may require reasonable accommodations for additional task and responsibilities

Preferred Experience/Education/Skills: 

• Application with Cover Letter will be preferentially considered
• B.Sc./B.Eng. in a relevant field such as biochemistry, biochemical/chemical engineering, biomaterial or equivalent is required
• Work experience in biochemical, pharma, chemical or equivalent industries preferred
• Experience with enzymes involved in NGS sample preparation or methylation assays, such as transposes, ligases, TET or APOBEC is a plus
• Experience of operating pilot-scale or large lab-scale processes in lyophilization or large scale (20 litres or above) cell culture (fermentation) is an advantage
• Understanding of protein biochemistry, engineering and structure is a plus
• Experience with Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) is not required but is a plus

Illumina believes that everyone has the ability to make an impact, and we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer committed to providing employment opportunity regardless of sex, race, creed, color, gender, religion, marital status, domestic partner status, age, national origin or ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, sexual orientation, pregnancy, military or veteran status, citizenship status, and genetic information.