Director, Research Informatics

Denali•South San Francisco, CA

2d•$204,000 - $265,000

About The Position

Research Informatics is responsible for the scientific data platforms and internal software that underpin the full research and development pipeline at Denali Therapeutics. This function owns the strategy, implementation, and ongoing support of the digital tools that enable scientists to register molecular entities and to track, analyze, and document associated experimental data across the full lifecycle, from early discovery through translational and development handoffs. These tools include Denali's Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN), the internal experiment data management platforms that underpin our scientific documentation, and the AI capabilities that unlock the full value of our data. The Director of Research Informatics will lead this function, serving as the strategic and operational owner of our scientific data platforms, including Benchling, Dotmatics, and our internal software and AI tool integration. This individual will define the informatics roadmap, drive stakeholder alignment behind it, and build a high-caliber engineering team, while serving as a trusted technical partner to Discovery, enterprise IT, and other operational leadership. This is a hands-on leadership role: the Director will set technical direction and make software architecture and design-space decisions, not simply manage from a distance.

Requirements

Typically requires a Bachelor's degree in a technical field (computer science, data science, engineering, or related); advanced degree preferred.
Typically requires 10+ years building and delivering software solutions, including 7+ years in pharma, biotech, or life sciences supporting laboratory informatics or scientific platforms.
Typically requires 8+ years of people management experience, including building and growing engineering teams.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on expertise with scientific data platforms (e.g., Benchling, Dotmatics) and experience leading ELN/registry migrations preferred.
Experience partnering with enterprise IT on security, licensing, and infrastructure, and familiarity applying AI/ML workflows to biological or chemical data, preferred.

Responsibilities

Owns the strategy, roadmap, and operational delivery of Research Informatics, including Benchling, Dotmatics, internal software systems, and AI integration.
Leads and grows a team responsible for platform support, configuration, validation, and continuous improvement across Discovery, Development, and Technical Operations.
Partners with scientists and lab operations leads to translate business and scientific requirements into scalable, well-engineered platform solutions.
Serves as subject matter expert on ELN capabilities and experiment data workflows, advising on platform selection and integration strategy.
Communicates platform strategy, status, and risk clearly to senior stakeholders, from group leaders to senior management.
Engages hands-on in configuration and platform build work, alongside strategic oversight.
Drives vendor relationships and manages platform migrations, escalations, and contract performance.
Explores and integrates next-generation, AI-driven experiment capture concepts, including passive documentation architectures that reduce manual interface dependency while preserving compliant, attributable records.
Owns roadmap prioritization and backlog decisions, balancing input from scientific, engineering, and IT stakeholders.
Leads direct report(s) through annual goal setting, growth planning, adherence to company policies, maintains training compliance, and provides ongoing feedback on growth, development, and areas of improvement.