Data Engineer in Cambridge

Company Description

Bicycle Therapeutics is a clinical‑stage pharmaceutical company developing a novel class of medicines, referred to as Bicycle® molecules, for diseases that are underserved by existing therapeutics. Bicycle molecules are fully synthetic short peptides constrained with small molecule scaffolds to form two loops that stabilize their structural geometry. This constraint facilitates target binding with high affinity and selectivity, making Bicycle molecules attractive candidates for drug development. The company is evaluating nuzafatide pevedotin (formerly 5528), a Bicycle® Drug Conjugate (BDC®) targeting EphA2, a historically undruggable target; zelenectide pevedotin (formerly BT8009), a BDC targeting Nectin‑4, a well‑validated tumor antigen; and BT7480, a Bicycle Tumor‑Targeted Immune Cell Agonist® (Bicycle TICA®) targeting Nectin‑4 and agonizing CD137, in company‑sponsored clinical trials. Additionally, the company is developing Bicycle® Radioconjugates (BRC®) for radiopharmaceutical use and, through various partnerships, is exploring the use of Bicycle® technology to develop therapies for diseases beyond oncology. Bicycle Therapeutics is headquartered in Cambridge, UK, with many key functions and members of its leadership team located in Lexington, Massachusetts, USA.

Culture is key and all Bicycle employees actively embrace and role model our company values:

• We are Adventurous. We believe it’s the way to deliver extraordinary results for our patients.
• We are Dedicated to our Mission. You can’t change the world if you don’t have determination.
• We are One Team. We only succeed when we work together.

Job Description

As our team in the UK expands, we have created an exciting new opportunity for a Data Engineer based at Bicycle Therapeutics offices at Granta Park, Cambridge. As a key member of our Systems & Data Engineering team whose goal is to help organize and display the scientific and research data that our scientific colleagues are producing. You will need to be a confident communicator and be able to collaborate with both technical and non‑technical stakeholders to deliver solutions that allow our Research & Innovation department to explore data visually and make data‑driven decisions. Our core principle is to do the hard work to make things simpler for our users, empowering scientists to focus on discovery and innovation, not tedious manual tasks. We are looking for a proactive and highly motivated engineer who thrives on challenges and variety. As a key member of a small, high‑impact team, you will be asked to get involved in a massive range of projects, requiring you to constantly learn and apply new skills. The ideal candidate is an ambitious, self‑driven problem‑solver who doesn’t just stick to what they know but is excited by the opportunity to work autonomously and deliver user‑friendly solutions in a fast‑paced, iterative environment. This is a hands‑on role requiring strong technical capabilities and sound architectural judgment, operating with a high degree of autonomy while aligning key technical decisions with the rest of the team. You will be expected to define and defend technical approaches, contribute to product direction through technical insight, and constructively challenge requirements where needed. You should be comfortable operating in environments where specifications evolve and be capable of adapting designs pragmatically as understanding develops. You will have demonstrable experience in back‑end Frameworks (Flask, Django), database technologies (SQL, no‑SQL), software engineering best practices (CI‑CD, Agile, Git), and experience of building cloud native solutions in either Google Cloud Platform or AWS. Familiarity with BigQuery, Looker and/or Snowflake would be advantageous. Ultimately you will help to drive the next growth cycle at Bicycle.

Key Responsibilities

• Data Architecture & Engineering: Design, implement, and evolve secure, scalable, and cost‑effective cloud‑native data architectures on GCP or AWS. Develop and maintain bespoke data solutions, from back‑end systems to front‑end visualizations, that directly support scientific workflows. Lead the implementation of new data management systems and drive best practices for code development, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure‑as‑code. Consume and transform large volumes of scientific data from various sources (including APIs) into structured, queryable data stores.
• Prototyping & Collaboration: Work in a fast‑paced, multi‑disciplinary team to rapidly prototype web applications and analytics assets that meet the evolving needs of lab scientists, bioinformaticians, and computational chemists. Collaborate with technical and non‑technical stakeholders to translate complex requirements into robust and intuitive software. Partner with senior members of the technology teams to evaluate existing technologies and recommend appropriate technical solutions, scoping for both on‑premise and cloud environments.

Qualifications

Essential:

• Experienced in building cloud native solutions (either GCP or AWS) and developing applications using Python to an intermediate level or above.
• Demonstrable experience working across the full stack, from backend systems to front end data visualisation.
• Experience in implementing tools and processes for automating deployment of services, and ensuring best practices are implemented.
• Experience with querying APIs / RESTful interfaces. API design experience or knowledge of the OpenAPI specification is a plus.
• Experience of database schema design and SQL/NoSQL database administration, ideally with both structured and unstructured data.
• Demonstrable experience with software development best practices (Git, CI‑CD).
• Experience with containerization, dependency, microservice management (docker, Kubernetes etc).

Desirable:

• AWS or GCP certifications.
• Experience using an Infrastructure‑as‑code deployment mechanism (e.g. Terraform).
• Experience of working with authentication systems and protocols e.g. OAuth/OIDC.
• Experience with data pipelining tools and ETL frameworks (e.g. Apache NiFi).
• Experience performing large data migrations from legacy systems to modern data frameworks.
• Experience of working with BigQuery and Looker.
• Experience with modern data analytics platforms such as Databricks, Snowflake, or similar lake house/warehouse environments.
• Familiarity with the use of AI tools to help achieve the above aims.
• Experience working with biological, chemical or drug discovery data.

Competencies:

• Knowledge & Expertise: Core Expertise: You demonstrate strong expertise in data engineering, providing technical direction and sound architectural judgment to your projects.
• Data / Insight: You translate complex analysis and disparate data sources into actionable, scalable, and reusable analytics assets.
• Knowledge Sharing: You promote best practices in software development and data architecture across the team and with your scientific stakeholders.

Job Complexity:

• Task / Project Delivery: You manage complex data engineering projects with multiple stakeholders, delivering iterative improvements and user‑friendly outcomes.
• Problem‑Solving: You anticipate technical challenges and develop creative, pragmatic solutions to ensure robust and reliable systems.
• Strategic Impact: Your work shapes the team’s technical priorities and directly impacts the research and innovation department’s ability to leverage data effectively.

Independence:

• Autonomy: You operate with a high degree of autonomy in ambiguous situations, aligning key technical decisions with the team while driving projects forward independently.
• Decision‑Making: You make significant technical decisions that affect your projects, constructively challenging requirements where needed to ensure the best outcome.
• Leadership / Mentorship: You provide structured mentorship to colleagues, sharing your technical expertise to build capability within the team.

Values & Behaviours:

• One Team: Collaboration: You act as a role model for teamwork, building strong collaborative relationships with scientific and technical colleagues to achieve shared goals. Inclusive Leadership: You create an inclusive environment by encouraging contributions and feedback from colleagues with different technical and scientific perspectives. Mentorship / Support: You actively coach and develop junior colleagues, sharing your knowledge to elevate the team’s collective skill set.
• Adventurous: Innovation: You introduce new ways of working, tools, and technologies to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our data systems. Risk‑Taking: You encourage calculated risk‑taking, such as experimenting with new cloud services or data frameworks to improve performance and user experience. Change Leadership: You champion positive change across the team, supporting the adoption of new data processes and architectural patterns.
• Dedicated to our Mission: Accountability: You own the outcomes of your projects, ensuring the data systems you build are reliable, secure, and aligned with our scientific priorities. Resilience: You demonstrate persistence when troubleshooting complex technical issues and maintain focus in a fast‑paced, evolving environment. Inspiration: You motivate others by connecting your technical work directly to the mission of empowering scientists and accelerating drug discovery.

Additional Information:

• State‑of‑the‑art campus environment with on‑campus restaurant and Montessori nursery.
• Flexible working environment.
• Competitive reward including annual company bonus.
• Employee recognition schemes.
• 28 days annual leave in addition to bank holidays + option to buy up to 5 additional days annually.
• Employer contribution to pension (employee does not have to contribute).
• Life assurance cover 4x basic salary.
• Private Medical Insurance, including optical and dental cover.
• Enhanced parental leave policies.
• Group income protection.
• Employee assistance programme.
• Health Cash Plan.
• Access to company subsidised gym membership.
• Eligibility for an option grant to subscribe to shares in Bicycle Therapeutics plc.
• Cycle to work scheme.

Bicycle Therapeutics is committed to building a diverse workforce that is representative of the communities we serve. We recognise that diverse and inclusive teams build a stronger and more innovative company. Therefore, all qualified applicants will be considered for employment, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability status, marital status, or veteran status.