Senior Scientific Lead

Your Tasks

• Maintain, develop, and advance XDS and related data-processing software across macromolecular crystallography, electron diffraction, serial crystallography, small-molecule crystallography, and adjacent techniques, ensuring it remains robust, performant, and trusted by the community
• Define and drive the roadmap for DECTRIS' crystallographic software across these techniques, evolving it for modern detectors and computing environments
• Act as DECTRIS' scientific point of contact for the global crystallography and structural-biology community, supporting users and gathering their needs
• Build and manage scientific and technology partnerships that strengthen DECTRIS' software and extend its scientific reach
• Work closely with a professional software engineer and with external partners to translate scientific methods into reliable, production-grade tools
• Engage with beamline scientists, facilities, and key users across the major diffraction techniques to ground software development in real experimental requirements
• Represent DECTRIS' software and scientific capabilities, internally and within the community

Your Skills

• PhD in crystallography, structural biology, physics, or a related discipline, with deep expertise in diffraction data processing (5-10 years) and openness to work across techniques - macromolecular and small-molecule crystallography, electron diffraction, and serial crystallography
• Recognised standing in the crystallographic or structural-biology community, with an established track record beyond the early-career stage
• Experience translating scientific methods into software, whether hands-on or by working closely with developers, and comfort collaborating with professional software engineers
• Excellent communication skills in English
• Willingness to travel internationally up to 30% of the time

• A forward-looking outlook on how crystallographic software and scientific computing are evolving, and the openness to help drive that change
• Strong partnership and stakeholder management skills, high emotional intelligence, and a collaborative, non-hierarchical working style
• Hands-on familiarity with crystallographic data-reduction software (e.g. XDS-class tools: spot finding, indexing, integration, scaling)

We Offer

• A successful and growing high tech company in an international, scientific environment
• To join the global leader in HPC X-ray detectors for science and industry. Our Developers design cutting-edge detectors to support the state of the art science and technology
• An international work environment formed by more than 170 experienced engineers, scientists and other professionals. The company languages are German and English
• Excellent, flexible working arrangements to enable professional development and personal life balance
• An attractive working environment: modern infrastructure with wheelchair-accessible rooms, small fitness room, underground car park, subsidised meals, free snacks and drinks, various company events, internal and external training, home office options, after-work beers and other joint leisure activities