Technical Project Manager III - Allen Institute

Technical Project Manager III

Although not required, a well-written cover letter is essential for us to assess your fit for this role. Please include one with your application.

The mission of the Allen Institute for Cell Science is to create multi-scale visual models of cell organization, dynamics, and activities. Our approach encompasses large-scale data collection, observation, theory, and predictions to understand cellular behavior in normal and pathological contexts. As a division within the Allen Institute, the Allen Institute for Cell Science uses a team-oriented approach, focusing on accelerating foundational research, developing standards and models, and cultivating new ideas to make a transformational impact on science.

We are seeking a Technical Project Manager to join our multidisciplinary Cell Science Management team to enhance efficiency and amplify the impact of our technical engineering and UX efforts in alignment with our Institute's priorities. This individual will play a pivotal role in managing the development, migration and improvements of our cloud-based ecosystem, which includes a laboratory information system, a file management system, data analysis and modeling pipelines, and public-facing tools. These tools are essential for gathering, analyzing, interpreting, and sharing our research findings in a robust and reproducible manner. The ideal candidate should be highly motivated, team-oriented, and committed to advancing the Institute’s research and development goals. This role requires prioritizing and streamlining our cross-team science and software tool development by collaborating with multiple teams. The primary responsibility of this position is to manage projects across infrastructure, software engineering, visualization, simulation, and UX domains, ensuring seamless communication between engineering and scientific teams.

The Allen Institute believes that team science significantly benefits from the participation of diverse voices, experiences, and backgrounds. High-quality science can only be produced when it includes different perspectives. We are committed to increasing diversity across every team and encourage people from all backgrounds to apply for this role.

Essential Functions

As Technical Project Manager, you will be a key leader around project planning, collaborative prioritization, resourcing, and execution of technical engineering and UX efforts in alignment with the overall mission of the Allen Institute for Cell Science. These projects include infrastructure, software engineering and UX efforts.

As part of the role, the Technical Project Manager will

• Lead project scoping with engineering, computational, and scientific stakeholders to define goals and deliverables
• Manage intake of project requests and gather requirements associated with the requests
• Manage the development, implementation and rollout of internal and external releases and maintain a quarterly roadmap for projects
• Proactively identifying at-risk projects, implementing mitigation strategies, and reducing scope-creep
• Communicate schedules, dependencies, issues, and risks across teams
• Develop and maintain comprehensive notes, reports, and presentations and provide regular project updates to stakeholders at various levels
• Partner closely with scientific program managers to ensure technical projects align with scientific priorities
• Facilitate collaboration and communication between software engineering, UX, computational and experimental teams to sustain focus, ensure on-time delivery, and drive project momentum
• Proactively identify areas of improvement in processes and software products

Note: Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. This description reflects management’s assignment of essential functions; it does not prescribe or restrict the tasks that may be assigned.

Required Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, relevant scientific field, or project management; or equivalent combination of degree and experience
• Minimum of 3 years direct experience in technical project management overseeing multiple, simultaneously ongoing engineering projects at different life cycle stages
• Experience with project management tools (e.g., GitHub, JIRA, Confluence, Smartsheet, Miro) and Microsoft Office
• Proven track record of success:
  • Creating and maintaining useful project plans amidst complexity and uncertainty
  • Working diplomatically with a broad network of internal and external contributors and stakeholders
• Communicating and translating high-level goals into tangible action plans (and vice-versa)
• Strong organizational, written, and verbal communication skills

Preferred Education and Experience

• Minimum of 5 years direct experience in technical project management overseeing multiple, simultaneously ongoing engineering projects at different life cycle stages
• Project management experience in a scientific research environment setting (life sciences, biotech, pharma or healthcare sector)
• Demonstrated experience with back-end and front-end software design patterns
• Experience successfully working with a diverse set of stakeholders (e.g., infrastructure and software engineering, UX, computational and experimental researchers)
• Technical and analytical skills with a focus on problem-solving and minimizing bottlenecks
• Passion for new technology and a user focused approach
• Creative problem-solving skills
• Coding experience (e.g., React JS/TS, Python, Java, etc.)
• Experience with LIMS software
• Agile certification

Physical Demands

• Fine motor movements in fingers/hands to operate computers and other office equipment
• Occasional lifting up to 30 pounds

Position Type/Expected Hours of Work

• This role is currently able to work both remotely and onsite in a hybrid work environment with an expected ~3 days a week onsite. We are a Washington State employer, and the primary work location for all Allen Institute employees is 615 Westlake Ave N.; any remote work must be performed in Washington State.

Travel

• Occasional travel to conferences or collaborative meetings might be required

Annualized Salary Range?

$123,700 - $154,600*

* Final salary depends on the required education for the role, experience, level of skills relevant to the role, and work location, where applicable.

Benefits

Employees (and their families) are eligible to enroll in benefits per eligibility rules outlined in the Allen Institute’s Benefits Guide. These benefits include medical, dental, vision, and basic life insurance. Employees are also eligible to enroll in the Allen Institute’s 401k plan. Paid time off is also available as outlined in the Allen Institutes Benefits Guide. Details on the Allen Institute’s benefits offering are located at the following link to the Benefits Guide: https://alleninstitute.org/careers/benefits.

It is the policy of the Allen Institute to provide equal employment opportunity (EEO) to all persons regardless of age, color, national origin, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, race, religion, creed, gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, genetic information, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. In addition, the Allen Institute will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities