Genomic and biological data piles up fast, and you turn it into something usable — building pipelines, querying datasets, and feeding clean results to scientists and decisions. The data plumbing under modern biology.
At a screen, you keep the data flowing — moving, cleaning, and querying large biological datasets and maintaining the pipelines that process them. You deliver results to research or product teams. Reliable, reproducible output is the goal, and a broken pipeline blocks everyone downstream, so stability matters as much as cleverness.
What surprises people is how much is data engineering, not biology — schema, scale, and tooling eat the day. Tools and platforms churn constantly, datasets are enormous, and product or research deadlines press against careful work. Scope varies by company, from heavy pipelines to more analysis and reporting.
It tends to fit someone technically strong, organized, and comfortable with scale and ambiguity. If you want pure science or hate plumbing work, the role may not suit. But if building the systems that let biology move faster appeals, the work tends to be steadily rewarding.
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Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
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View all Technology roles →Genomic and biological data piles up fast, and you turn it into something usable — building pipelines, querying datasets, and feeding clean results to scientists and decisions. The data plumbing under modern biology.
Median pay for a Bioinformatics Data Analyst is about $93K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $55K to $160K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Critical Thinking, Reading Comprehension, Speaking, Active Listening, and Complex Problem Solving.
Most people in this role hold a bachelor's degree.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 1.2% through 2034, with roughly 59,710 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Data Operations Director, Data Center Product Director, and Clinical Data Management Director (CDM Director).
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