[Hiring] Data & Discovery Engineer @Ralco Agriculture

Role Description

This role has two equal parts:

• Building and maintaining the data infrastructure that makes Ralco's Innovation pipeline trustworthy and queryable.
• Working alongside members of the R&D team and IT to develop models and tools that surface candidate compounds and patterns for the science team.

Success means the Innovation team spends less time hunting for or correcting data and more time doing science, with a shared database that grows more useful, trustworthy, and queryable over time.

This job description is not meant to be all-inclusive, and duties may vary based on departmental and company needs.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Data Science, Data Engineering, Bioinformatics, Computer Science, or a closely related field.
• 3–6 years of experience in data science, data engineering, bioinformatics, master data management, or a closely related field.

Requirements

• Design, build, and continuously improve the pipeline connecting lab instruments, in-vitro work, and barn/field data sources into the shared database.
• Build, or work with IT to build, a LIMS-style direct-entry system, owning the correct entry, tagging, organizing, and storing of it correctly in the shared database.
• Design and maintain the database schema and tagging conventions so the data can be queried and modeled correctly.
• Work with IT to design and validate permission, gated access controls that determine who can see sensitive data.
• Ensure new compound and trial data is entered with a complete, validated profile.
• Resolve data-quality issues directly with the originating scientist before any correction is made.
• Lead periodic data audits to reconcile duplicate or conflicting records and standardize naming conventions.
• Build and maintain anomaly detection, compound similarity/clustering, and pattern-flagging tools.
• Build, retrain, and validate the models used for querying the database on a documented cadence tied to data volume.
• Work with the R&D team to ensure the model used for querying stays the most accurate and correct fit for the data.
• Actively review data across active research projects, bringing forward insights, trends, or connections for the science team.
• Conduct regular cross-project data reviews to help surface new angles or connections for the R&D team.
• Run patent searches and compile literature searches on request.
• Produce a quarterly gap-audit report and a brief report after every model retraining cycle.
• Follow and help enforce Ralco's IP protection practices for anything touching the shared database.
• Regularly meet with the R&D and IT teams to stay closely connected to their work.

Benefits

• Regular travel to Marshall, MN expected.
• Remote (US) location.

Company Description

Ralco is a family-owned agricultural health and nutrition company with a global presence, distributing products in over 40 countries. Inspired by nature and powered by science, Ralco develops innovative, natural solutions to support plant and animal health.