Scientific Affairs Director

This is a key leadership role at Cornerstone. The successful candidate will be responsible to oversee all projects and activities related to Cornerstone’s clients in scientific/academic markets. As Scientific Affairs Director, you will provide or delegate to appropriate staff the following tasks to ensure that each of our scientific/academic clients are delivered high value according to agreed-upon statements of work: account management, systems analysis, and project-leadership.

You will work to ensure that appropriate resources (human and infrastructure) are efficiently allocated to meet the requirements of Cornerstone’s agreements on time and on budget. You will collaborate with others within Cornerstone to develop relationships with potential new clients and develop the business into new areas potentially outside of Cornerstone’s core competencies of microsimulation and cancer policy support research.

You will collaborate closely with the Scientific Projects Lead, Developer, Systems Administration Lead, and the Business Operations Director to ensure that infrastructure remains secure and meets all governmental requirements (notably—but not limited to—FISMA and Section 508 regulation).

You will attend various scientific meetings as a scientific liaison to our group and also present research summaries of work we have collaborated on.

Outstanding candidates for this role will have expert knowledge of the dynamics of the academic grant cycle and how it relates to Cornerstone’s business and the political aspects of providing and negotiating services to government agencies—notably the National Institutes of Health (NIH). You will also have proven negotiation skills that demonstrate your capacity to maintain long-term relationships with clients. You will be able to demonstrate your ability to develop new opportunities to serve clients in the scientific and academic arenas. You will also provide evidence of your ability to collaborate well with academics, developers, international senior scientists, and software engineers. You will have strong time-management skills and experience in managing small software development teams. You will have a passion for building a healthy empathetic culture in a small business setting.

While the director role is not a software development role, the successful candidate will become proficient in a wide variety of software development technologies and methodologies such as Agile and Continuous Improvement (CI), and Minimal Viable Product; and with collaboration tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Pivotal Tracker, and other emerging SaaS tools. What you don’t know, we will teach you.

Guiding Principles

1. Lead by example—when it comes to empathy towards clients and colleagues you will be setting the tone for our team and our clients.

2. Servant leadership— think carefully and often about what your team members might need and how you can assist them in making wins for their projects and careers.

3. Nurturing sustainable long-term relationships with clients and service providers are far more important than potentially profitable short-term relationships—be able to decline potentially lucrative but damaging projects/clients.

Core Requirements (You’ll need these things to be eligible.)

1. Masters degree or greater in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Engineering, Management or related field (background in Stochastic Simulation, Data Science, Decision Science, and/or Statistics an asset)

2. Five to ten years of senior management experience in software development, scientific study design, scientific project management, or a related field

3. Superlative written and verbal communication skills

Desired Skills (Those that you don't have, you can expect to develop.)

1. Tact and humility

2. Collaboration on peer-reviewed scientific papers

3. Systems analysis skills:

-Ability to listen to and interpret project specifications from clients into a format that software -

developers can understand

-Ability to listen to and interpret technical constraints and approaches from developers into a format that clients can digest

4. Management skills:

-Ability to listen to and motivate team members

-Ability to give timely and succinct feedback to team members and clients

-Ability to supervise team members, work assignments, schedules, and priorities

-Ability to create and sustain a positive work environment for team members and clients over time

-Expert contract negotiation skills (experience with government contracts an asset)

-Budgeting and forecasting

-Ability to cost out a project based on input from clients and developers

-End of project/cycle review and learning

-Ability to assess and hire individuals with technical skills and build technical teams

5. Grant writing

6. Technical skills: while you may not be a software developer per se, you will need to understand the applications and their dependencies enough to lead developers on projects, perform preliminary code reviews, select appropriate technologies, and do occasional small project coding as needed.

The Way We Work

1. Remotely (we’ve been a remote team for 20 years)

2. Agile methodology

3. Pivotal Tracker

4. GitHub Flow

5. Slack

6. Daycast

Please submit a cover letter, CV/Résumé with references to: hr"at"cornerstonenw.com. Use Subject: Scientific Affairs Director

Principals only please