Sr. Data Scientist

Job DescriptionJob Description

About Confluence Genetics
Confluence Genetics develops soybean technologies and varieties that create value from farm-gate to feed, food and fuel end-markets by unlocking the natural genetic of plants. The Company leverages their proprietary CropOS™ machine learning platform with proprietary germplasm data and speed breeding technologies in our Crop Accelerator facility to drastically accelerate and simplify the product development process. This platform allows for cost-effective and more efficient ways to analyze and make improvements in plant genetics. Confluence Genetics brings a unique and holistic approach to our product and platform development, as we span a broader workflow involving trait and seed development, genome editing, and breeding all the way to creating better ingredients and varieties that tap a strong customer demand. More information can be found online at https://confluence.ag/.

Our Purpose and Core Values

Our Core Values are a set of common principles we share that are fundamental to our company's .

• Be Bold!  We redefine boundaries by providing new solutions to difficult problems. Together we are driven to transform the future and will not allow the fear of failure to prevent us from innovating. We voice our opinions, embrace change, and challenge each other to think creatively.
• Be Inspired! We have purpose in our work-we are curious, engaged, and have fun. We maintain an active learning mindset and are motivated by diverse people and thoughts. We are energized by all innovators and together we aim to make an impact and contribute to building a better world.
• Be Real! We understand who we are, what we want to achieve, and what it takes to get there. We hold each other accountable through timely, candid, and well-intentioned feedback. Together we engage in honest communication and healthy debate that leads to success through true alignment.

Department Overview

The CropOS and Discovery Department leads the development of Confluence Genetics' crop design platform, CropOS™ which combines machine learning and big data with advanced breeding methods, genome editing and plant biology to simplify and accelerate the product development process. The team partners with the Product Design & Product Development teams to build a portfolio of offerings (commercial product or platform related) that meet the needs of Confluence Genetics' business units.

Position Summary

The Sr. Data Scientist will be responsible for designing and implementing state-of-the-art machine learning and simulation models to support decision making related to crop breeding. This person will work closely with Confluence Genetics scientists, data engineers, and project leaders to maximize the impact of Confluence Genetics' breeding and product development programs.    

You Will:

• Identify opportunities for innovation and business improvements through applications of machine learning and simulation 
• Design and implement state-of-the-art machine learning prediction and classification models 
• Design experiments, analyses, pipelines, and workflows to solve complex business problems 
• Collaborate with various internal teams including scientists from other disciplines, data and software engineers, and project leaders 
• Effectively communicate results in written and visual format to other scientists and project stakeholders 
• Help maintain code quality, organization, and automatization
• Enable creative scalable engineering solutions for data gathering and integration for structured and unstructured data sets
• Engineer cloud deployed software solutions to enable data and analytics pipelines
• Continuously improve and maintain code quality through writing unit tests, automation and code reviews
• Contribute ideas to help improve our technology, coding standards and products

 You Have:

(Competencies and Qualifications)

Education

• Ph.D. (or Master’s degree with 3-5 years’ experience) in machine learning or closely related field that includes formal training in ML 

Experience

• Experience applying machine learning methodology across multiple domains and with a variety of business objectives 
• Experience designing simulation and optimization models for research or business applications 
• Experience in benchmarking and model performance evaluation and improvement 
• Experience using a variety of ML packages and libraries and cloud-based AI platforms such as TensorFlow, H2O.ai, Amazon Sagemaker or others 
• Experience organizing and planning complex projects and ability to multi-task in a start-up setting   

 Software/Skillset

• Fluency in Python and experience using other programming
• Familiarity with data engineering, data storage methodologies and cloud technology platforms like AWS
• Knowledge of advanced machine learning, deep learning, data engineering, and statistical approaches
• Strong understanding of scientific concepts, approaches, application, and interpretation

 Other

• Attention to detail 
• Collaborative 
• Ability to focus and work independently with little direction  
• Demonstrated enthusiasm for innovation in the application of machine learning technology
• A strong record of personal development and learning new skills and technologies

We have a Total Rewards Package at Confluence Genetics that consists of more than just your paycheck. Total Rewards at Confluence Genetics covers Pay (salary and bonus), Health (employer benefit contributions) and Wealth (investments). Some of the perks include:

• A Collaborative Environment
• A flexible PTO program with a focus on work/life balance
• Competitive medical, dental and vision benefits
• Retirement savings plan with a company match
• Education reimbursement
• PAID parental leave
• And more….