Senior Platform Software Engineer (Ruby on Rails)

Enter Job Description...
We are seeking a senior-level software engineer to augment our engineering team as we continue building the core platform supporting a multi-site biospecimen collection and processing initiative within higher education health research.

The application serves as the operational system connecting biospecimen collection sites, laboratory processing systems, and downstream research platforms. It orchestrates the movement of research data between institutional systems while building a searchable catalog of biospecimens available for research.

This is not a traditional line-of-business CRUD application. It is an evolving research data platform implemented as a modern Ruby on Rails application.

The successful engineer will be responsible for delivering production-ready platform capabilities while helping evolve the architecture of a long-lived system.



About the Platform

The platform currently:

• Integrates multiple institutional and research systems
• Orchestrates biospecimen collection and laboratory workflows
• Normalizes data into a common domain model
• Maintains relationships across studies, shipments, kits, biospecimens, and processing events
• Serves as the authoritative catalog of biospecimens available to researchers

Current integrations include:

• REDCap
• SLIMS (Agilent Laboratory Information Management System)
• REST-based partner systems

Upcoming integrations include:

• Amazon S3
• Additional institutional REST APIs
• Future research data services

Technology Environment

• Ruby 3.X
• Ruby on Rails 8
• PostgreSQL
• Docker
• Dev Containers
• GitHub
• GitHub Actions
• GitHub Copilot
• AWS
• AWS CDK (Infrastructure as Code)
• Kamal deployment
• Jira

Engineering Environment

Our team values pragmatic software engineering and continuous delivery.

Engineers are expected to:

• Own features from technical design through production deployment.
• Produce technical specifications before implementation.
• Deliver incremental functionality rather than pursuing large redesigns.
• Participate in architectural decisions.
• Improve existing architecture thoughtfully over time.
• Challenge requirements constructively while maintaining delivery momentum.

Architecture is intentionally evolved not repeatedly reinvented.



AI-Assisted Engineering

GitHub Copilot is part of our standard development workflow.

Engineers are expected to:

• Define implementation plans
• Produce technical specifications
• Use Copilot Agent workflows to accelerate implementation
• Critically review AI-generated code
• Maintain full ownership of architecture, testing, and production quality

AI accelerates engineering it does not replace engineering judgment.