Associate Scientist, R&D

Position Summary

Join Natera's Bio Development team as an Associate Scientist to design, optimize, and validate molecular assays for our market‑leading non‑invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) platform. This role bridges molecular biology with high‑throughput liquid handling automation to directly impact patient care. The ideal candidate has strong experience in assay development, automated workflows, and data analysis, operating with an ownership mindset to convert scientific data into scalable clinical protocols.

• Design, plan, and execute complex laboratory experiments autonomously to advance non‑invasive prenatal test development.
• Analyze experimental data using advanced analytical tools, providing data‑driven insights and troubleshooting laboratory processes.
• Own and document technical workflows, summarizing findings in research reports and laboratory presentations.
• Partner cross‑functionally with Clinical Laboratory Operations (CLIA), Quality Assurance (QA), and Automation Engineering to ensure methods meet rigorous quality and regulatory standards.
• Write standard operating procedures (SOPs) and technical documentation to seamlessly transfer protocols to manufacturing and operations teams.
• Train junior team members and operator teams on newly developed protocols.
• Maintain deep professional expertise by staying current with scientific literature relevant to cell‑free DNA and nucleic acid technologies.

• BA/BS with 6+ years of experience OR MS with 3+ years of experience in assay development and automation within the life sciences industry.
• Demonstrated track record of developing, optimizing, and validating manual and automated protocols.

• Strong underlying scientific knowledge of nucleic acid extraction, PCR, NGS library preparation, and hybrid capture technologies.
• Hands‑on experience in reagent preparation and quality control for NGS‑associated assays.
• Direct experience implementing, optimizing, and troubleshooting high‑throughput automated assays utilizing liquid handler robotics.
• Experience designing and executing formal design control studies, including stability, guard banding, reproducibility, repeatability, and validation.
• Prior experience operating within a regulated laboratory environment (CLIA, CAP, or FDA).
• Data analysis and scripting proficiency in Python or R, along with liquid handler programming experience, is highly preferred.
• Excellent cross‑functional collaboration, organizational, and time‑management skills.

Austin, TX

$84,000—$105,000 USD

Natera is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to ensuring a diverse and inclusive workplace environment, and welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply, and will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, age, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status.

We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with applicable laws.