Associate Director, Data Engineering

About Formation Bio Formation Bio is an AI-native pharma company differentiated by radically more efficient drug development. The company has built proprietary technology platforms to optimize critical aspects of clinical drug development, enabling more efficient trial design, faster trial completion, and higher quality trial data. Formation Bio acquires clinical-stage drugs from pharmaceutical and biotech companies with the goal to develop assets faster, unlock greater value per program and ultimately accelerate access to new treatments for patients. 2025 CNBC Disruptor 50 2025 Fierce 15 Award 2024 Endpoints 11 Award

Formation Bio

Bringing new treatments to patients faster and more efficiently.

F

formation.bio

51-200 employees

Biotechnology Research

New York, NY

2013

Privately Held

48k LinkedIn followers

Raised $528M

• Our Vision for AI in Pharma
• [https://www.formation.bio/blog/our-vision-for-ai-in-pharma]
• Our Current Drug Portfolio [https://www.formation.bio/licensing-and-pipeline]
• At Formation Bio, our values are the driving force behind our mission to
• revolutionize the pharma industry. Every team and individual at the company
• shares these same values, and every team and individual plays a key part in our
• mission to bring new treatments to patients faster and more efficiently.
• Hire, coach, and develop a team of data engineers, including setting goals,
• delivering feedback, and managing performance.
• Set the technical direction and roadmap for data engineering, prioritizing
• work across data quality, governance, scalability, and stakeholder experience
• in partnership with engineering and business leadership.
• Partner with key stakeholders such as: Data Science, Analytics, Clinical
• Operations, Data Managers, and Business Development on the design and
• delivery of pipelines and data models that support operational reporting,
• asset evaluation, and advanced analytics and ML use cases, ensuring your team
• designs solutions that close gaps and sees them through from concept to
• implementation.
• Oversee the architecture and maintenance of the data platform, including
• ingestion from clinical, operational, and third-party vendor sources,
• orchestration, transformation, and the Snowflake warehouse, across
• development, staging, and production environments.
• Ensure the team establishes and maintains strong data quality, observability,
• lineage, and documentation practices, and holds a high bar for engineering
• quality across the data platform.
• Own data governance practices for regulated and sensitive data, including
• access controls, auditability, and traceability appropriate for systems
• supporting clinical trial operations.
• Review and provide feedback on requirements and design documents for new data
• products and pipelines, and ensure documentation and knowledge-sharing
• practices stay strong across the team.
• Drive knowledge sharing, training, and mentoring on data engineering
• fundamentals and modern data tooling throughout the organization.
• Own the team's support rotation coverage for data platform incidents,
• including staffing, escalation paths, and incident retrospectives.
• Manage team budgeting, resourcing, and reporting for data engineering
• initiatives.

• 7+ years of total experience across hands-on data engineering and people
• management, including 3+ years directly managing Data Engineers, Analytics
• Engineers, or similar. We're looking for someone who has built and managed
• these systems and brings that depth to how they lead.
• A track record of hiring, developing, and retaining strong engineers, with
• the ability to give direct, actionable feedback and set clear expectations.
• Skilled at directing a team that uses AI tools, including LLMs and agentic
• coding systems, as a core, daily part of how they build. Able to set a high
• bar for using AI responsibly to accelerate pipeline development, investigate
• data quality issues, improve data modeling workflows, and increase the team's
• overall engineering leverage.
• Strong point of view on modern data stack tooling: warehousing (Snowflake),
• orchestration (e.g. Dagster or Airflow), transformation (e.g. dbt), and the
• tradeoffs between batch and streaming approaches.
• Exceptional collaboration and communication skills to effectively engage and
• work alongside stakeholders from diverse disciplines and varying levels of
• technical expertise, including Data Science, Clinical Operations,
• Biostatistics, BD, and non-technical partners.
• Experience managing or coordinating technical projects and programs,
• including resource budgeting, estimates, tracking, and reporting.
• Working knowledge of data governance, access control, and auditability
• practices, ideally including experience with regulated or sensitive data
• (clinical, PHI, or similar).
• Working knowledge of Python, SQL, Docker, GitHub, and Terraform/OpenTofu
• sufficient to guide and evaluate your team's technical decisions.
• Experience overseeing data quality frameworks, testing, and observability
• tooling for production data pipelines.
• Experience with pharmaceutical, biotechnology, or broader life-sciences
• industry data is a plus, but not required.

• Compensation Individual compensation is determined by several factors, including
• role scope, geographic location, and skills & experience. Your offer will
• reflect where you fall within the range based on these considerations. In
• addition to base salary, we offer equity, comprehensive benefits, and generous
• perks. If the posted range doesn't match your expectations, we still encourage
• you to apply!
• Where We Hire Formation Bio is prioritizing hiring in key hubs, primarily the
• New York City and Boston metro areas, with a hybrid model requiring 3 days per
• week in office. Applicants from the Research Triangle (NC) and San Francisco Bay
• Area may also be considered. Please apply only if you reside in these locations
• or are willing to relocate.
• Equal Opportunity Formation Bio is committed to building a diverse and inclusive
• We've seen a rise in recruiting impersonation scams across the industry, where
• fake profiles pose as recruiters aiming to trick candidates into sharing
• personal and financial information through illegitimate interviews and job
• offers. All legitimate recruiting communications from Formation Bio will come
• from a @formation.bio email address. If you receive outreach from someone
• claiming to work at Formation Bio through any other domain or channel, please
• disregard it and do not share any personal information.