Abbott Posted October 9, 2026

Sr. Bioinformatics Scientist

La Jolla, California, United States FULL_TIME
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Abbott is the source of truth for this posting and owns the application process. We surface normalized context and market comparison you won't find on the original listing.

About this opportunity

Abbott is a global healthcare leader that helps people live more fully at all stages of life. Our portfolio of life-changing technologies spans the spectrum of healthcare, with leading businesses and products in diagnostics, medical devices, nutritionals and branded generic medicines. Our 122,000 colleagues serve people in more than 160 countries.

Working at Abbott

At Abbott, you can do work that matters, grow, and learn, care for yourself and your family, be your true self, and live a full life. You’ll also have access to:

Career development with an international company where you can grow the career you dream of.

Employees can qualify for free medical coverage in our Health Investment Plan (HIP) PPO medical plan in the next calendar year.

An excellent retirement savings plan with a high employer contribution.

Tuition reimbursement, the Freedom 2 Save student debt program, and FreeU education benefit - an affordable and convenient path to getting a bachelor’s degree.

A company recognized as a great place to work in dozens of countries worldwide and named one of the most admired companies in the world by Fortune.

A company that is recognized as one of the best big companies to work for as well as the best place to work for diversity, working mothers, female executives, and scientists.

The Opportunity

This position works out of our La Jolla location in the Cancer Diagnostics division.

As the Senior Bioinformatics Scientist, you’ll have the chance to work in collaboration with others on one or more projects which are complex in scope. The Senior Bioinformatics Scientist participates in or leads planning of projects and analyses and is often the bioinformatics lead responsible for the successful execution of the project. This position involves independently making detailed observations, analyzing data, interpreting results, and providing insights into the next steps and direction of the project, as well as independently determining methods and procedures on new assignments or projects. Working in a team setting, the Senior Bioinformatics Scientist will be involved in Research and Development projects serving as a technical lead and/or a subject matter expert in exploring and researching new technologies, providing ideas and concepts to improve or develop processes, and/or establish methods and processes for product development towards development of diagnostic assay products. The Senior Bioinformatics Scientist will mentor and provide technical guidance to junior scientists in project teams.

What You’ll Work On

Algorithm development to improve sensitivity of germline variant calling.

Building bioinformatics pipeline prototypes to support germline sequencing.

Development of Machine learning models to support variant classification and clinical significance predictions.

Minimum Qualifications

Ph.D. in bioinformatics, computational biology, computer science, mathematics, or related field; or Master’s degree in bioinformatics, computational biology, computer science, mathematics, or related field plus 4 years of experience in lieu of a Ph.D.; or Bachelor’s degree in bioinformatics, computational biology, computer science, mathematics, or related field plus 6 years of experience in lieu of Ph.D.

5+ years of industry or academia experience in bioinformatics.

3+ years of experience in medical device/IVD, biotech, life science or pharmaceutical industry.

Extensive experience in Linux-based HPC or cloud computing environments and associated tools.

Ability to write custom code in at least three programming or scripting languages.

Technical expert in the area of molecular biology and/or biochemistry and/or next-generation sequencing (NGS) and genomics.

Knowledge of product/assay research, design, or development.

Working knowledge of statistical and mathematical methods in biology/genetics, including experience with statistical software, such as JMP or R.

Basic computer skills to include Internet navigation, Email usage, and word processing.

Proficient in Microsoft Office to include Excel and Word and PowerPoint.

Demonstrated ability to perform the essential duties of the position with or without accommodation.

Applicants must be currently authorized to work in country where work will be performed on a full time or part-time basis. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of employment visas at this time.

Preferred Qualifications

8+ years of experience in medical device/IVD, biotech, life science or pharmaceutical industry.

Previous industry experience in product development or technical support.

Background containing a substantial amount of bioinformatics work including troubleshooting.

Previous experience working in a molecular diagnostics/clinical laboratory setting.

Variant calling (SNV/CNV/SV) experience in algorithm development/building pipelines.

Experience with NextFlow to create NGS pipelines.

Experience with AWS or other similar cloud platforms.

Experience with whole exome/targeted panel.

Experience with comprehensive genomic profiling panel design and data analysis.

Machine learning and AI.

Learn more about our health and wellness benefits, which provide the security to help you and your family live full lives: https://abbottbenefits.com/

Follow your career aspirations to Abbott for diverse opportunities with a company that can help you build your future and live your best life. Abbott is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to employee diversity.

Connect with us at abbott.com , on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/abbott-/ , and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AbbottCareers .

The base pay for this position is $90,000.00 – $180,000.00. In specific locations, the pay range may vary from the range posted.

Job details

Seniority
Senior
Function
Biostatistics & Data Science
Therapeutic area
Not listed
Location
La Jolla, California, United States
Employment type
FULL_TIME

How this role compares

Computed from every other active Biostatistics & Data Science role in our database, not just this employer's listings.

We currently track 131 comparable Senior Biostatistics & Data Science roles across 31 biopharma companies.

131Comparable roles tracked
129Currently active
31Companies hiring similar roles
17Countries represented

Salary context

57 of 131 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)

Peers share this role's job function and a matching or adjacent seniority level -- not necessarily the same therapeutic area or country.

This roleSubject Not listed on this posting
Lowest disclosed · Principal Computational Statistician · Lilly $66,000/yr – $193,600/yr
Highest disclosed · Biostatistics Associate Director (HYBRID) · Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc (US) $174,800/yr – $262,200/yr
Peer group range $129,800 – $218,500 (median $180,500)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 131 comparable roles

United States78
India11
United Kingdom8
Canada6
China6
Japan3

+ 11 more countries

Seniority mix

131 of 131 peers have a known seniority level

Senior61
Principal37
Associate Director33

Therapeutic area mix

9 of 131 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Oncology6
Immunology2
Rare Disease1

Similar opportunities

The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.

60%similar
Lilly Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Lilly Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
AbbVie Worcester, MA Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Merck KGaA Billerica, Massachusetts, United States Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
UCB Atlanta, Georgia, United States Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc (US) Boston, United States Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country

Notify me about similar jobs

Get an email when we spot other openings like this one – same job function, comparable seniority, roles you'd actually want to see.

How we calculate "similar"

No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.

Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.

60%
Sr. Advisor - Statistics (RWE)
Lilly · Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America · Senior
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Senior Scientist - Oligo Bioinformatics
Merck KGaA · Billerica, Massachusetts, United States · Senior
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Senior Scientist, Statistical Programming
Merck · Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America · Senior
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Senior Bioinformatics Engineer II
ModernaTX, Inc. · Cambridge, United States · Senior
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
Unmatched or unknown dimensions score exactly the same: 0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.