Staff Microbiology Scientist - Sterling Engineering
San Jose, CA
About the Job
Title: Staff Microbiology Scientist
Location: San Jose, California
Hire Type: Contract-to-Hire
Target Pay Range: $65.00 - 70.00/hour (W2, with full employee benefits)
Overview:
Sterling has helped build careers for thousands of professionals like yourself. Our expert recruiters support you at every step in the process and as a Best of Staffing company, Sterling provides exciting work with exceptional employers across the U.S.
As a contract employee of Sterling, you are eligible to receive a Full Employee Benefits Package that includes paid time off, paid holidays, 3 medical plans to choose from, dental & vision plans, 401(k), and an Employee Stock Ownership (ESOP) plan.
Job Summary:
As a Staff Scientist in the Microbiology Department of a medical products company, you will play a crucial role in supporting the development of Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (AST) products. Responsibilities will span both laboratory work and collaboration with software and system engineering teams to ensure seamless integration of AST assays on the product platform. You will contribute to building and documenting tools, ensuring precise and dependable AST assay results to guide patient therapy.
Job Duties:
- Collaborate closely with the software, hardware development and system engineering teams, as well as other functions, to support menu products of the AST system.
- Implement the use of software solutions within the department and support their integration on the product platform.
- Contribute to the development of tools for analyzing large performance data sets generated from AST experiments. Additionally describe and detail use cases for the software team.
- Establish and maintain configuration management processes for systems and software and ensure version control and traceability of software releases within the microbiology department.
- Support biological testing needed for software validation and system verification activities.
- Troubleshoot technical issues specific to the AST tests/system, record and report these issues cross-functionally, and provide suggestions and resolutions for investigations.
- Prepare bacterial cultures and perform AST experiments using clinical bacterial isolates.
- Collaborate with other scientists and managers to optimize testing protocols and workflows within the lab.
- Maintain accurate records of experiments and results, write work instructions (WIs), standard operating procedures (SOPs), protocols, reports, process flows, etc.
- Ensure compliance with regulatory standards (e.g., FDA, ISO) and comply with biohazard safety standards.
- Participate in product risk assessment, technical design reviews and critically evaluate design and implementation plans.
- Summarize findings and present results to cross-functional teams.
- Mentor and train new and existing team members and be a technical advisor for data analysis problems.
- Propose and explore novel approaches/tools to enhance testing accuracy and efficiency.
Qualifications:
- Master’s Degree with 8+ years of experience, or a PhD with 5+ years in Microbiology, Bioengineering, or related field.
- Demonstrated proficiency in AST methods (broth microdilution, disk diffusion, etc.) desirable.
- Familiarity with bacterial identification systems (MALDI-TOF, PCR).
- Understanding of regulatory and compliance requirements for IVD products (e.g., QSR, ISO, GLP).
- Programming skills (Python, R, or similar) for data analysis.
- Familiarity with data visualization/analysis software such as Tableau, JMP or Minitab. Strong proficiency in the use of MS office suite.
Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identify, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or genetic information.
Source : Sterling Engineering