Michelle is 23andMe’s curation manager. “Curation” often evokes images of an old scholar in a musty museum categorizing dinosaur bones for museum exhibits. But in the past decade or so, the term has also come to be used to describe scientists, usually in a biological field, organizing and annotating electronic data and scientific publications.

Michelle is part of the content team that brings the genetic associations to customers in the “My Health and Traits” section. She scours the scientific literature to find genotype-phenotype associations that meet 23andMe’s strict criteria (see our white paper on vetting genetic associations), extracts the pertinent information, and builds the company’s association database. As curator, Michelle is responsible for gleaning interesting and relevant facts from a huge volume of available publications, the first step towards 23andMe’s goal of translating and personalizing the latest genetic advances for our customers.

The vast amount of genomic data, and the literature that describes and analyzes this information, is growing everyday. If you are a geneticist or biologist in a related field interested in staying current with this research, without being in a wet lab, consider joining our curation team! You can check out a description of the position on our jobs page.

Michelle on the 23andMe Service:

“My favorite part of the service is being able to participate in the 23andWe surveys. I think that having the opportunity to participate in future genotype-phenotype studies is awesome. Most people don’t have the opportunity to contribute to scientific research efforts; 23andMe provides an easy way to do just that.”

Michelle on Being a 23andMe Employee:

“I came to 23andMe from PharmGKB, an academic pharmacogenomics data base. I was excited about the prospect of providing genomic information to non-scientists through 23andMe. I think it is so important for people to be able to understand the advancements, and limitations, of current research in genomics and genetics, as well as the implications for them personally. I am excited to be a part of a company that is motivated not only to provide people their own genetic data, but to explain what the current research means.”

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Brian spends his days deep within the heart of the 23andMe web infrastructure. He is a software engineer with long experience in the biomedical field, having previously supported pharmacogenomics and brain imaging endeavors. In addition to being ready and willing to automate himself out of a job, Brian is obsessed with producing beautifully designed, well factored code. An engineer friend once referred to him as a member of the “Order of the Golden Ziggurat” (a shadowy society of engineers fanatically devoted to code beauty). Brian also sometimes works on user-facing features, and actually enjoys writing javascript, though his command of the dark art of CSS cannot match that of the UI wizards he works with.

Brian on the 23andMe service:

“Understanding that knowledge is power, I’m excited to know as much as possible about myself. 23andMe empowers its customers (including me!) by providing them with a wealth of new personal information that would have been completely inaccessible just one year ago.”

“I am also very excited about 23andMe’s prospects for generating novel research results from genome-wide association studies. The expense of collecting enough data to derive relevant findings from an association study is simply prohibitive for most traditional research groups. Overcoming that expense by the economy of scale puts 23andMe in a unique position to pioneer a more productive and fundamentally new paradigm for genetic research.”

Brian on being a 23andMe employee:

“The group I work with here is like an engineering SWAT team. I’ve learned much more from them in the past nine months than I would have working independently or with a company that invested less time finding and selecting the best. The emphasis placed on security is also unparalleled. Knowing that the engineers responsible for our core security infrastructure have come straight from top positions in the online finance industry gives me great confidence in the security of my genetic data. Of course we have plenty of fun here too – Rock Band, Segway polo, movie nights, and meals provided!”

Think you have what it takes to join Brian in engineering? Check out our jobs page!

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We want to ensure that we always present our users with a delightful and empowering experience as they explore their genomes. We are continuously improving the design of all dimensions of our service because they all converge to influence the user experience (UX) of 23andMe – the experience a user will have while interacting with our service. This is where User Experience Designer Iram Mirza comes in.

“The most valuable (and fun) part of designing the user experience for 23andMe is iterating on new and existing solutions,” says Iram.

“We obviously can’t always come up with the best solutions the first time around. Once a design is created, we test it with users to get their feedback and check the design against usability rules of thumb regarding what makes a website easy for people to use and understand. Based on the collective feedback, we adjust the design to make it more usable. Once designs go live on the www.23andme.com site, we continue gathering feedback from customers and use it to inform our future work.”

“I really encourage users to come chat with us about their experiences with 23andMe,” she says.

If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area and interested in being a subject for usability testing, send an email to help@23andme.com to schedule a time to come in an meet Iram. If you can’t visit, that’s ok too. You can always just send us questions or suggestions you might have.

Iram on the 23andMe service:
“I think of 23andMe as a unique network. I love being able to share and compare my genetic profile with my family members who are also 23andMe customers.”

“My sister and I now know there is a good chance we could be organ donors for each other — we used the Family Inheritance feature to compare our genomes.”

“We also learned that my genetics indicate that I can’t taste the bitterness in things like Brussels sprouts, while my sister’s data show that she can. Neither one of us likes Brussels sprouts (there’s more to hate than just bitterness!), but it’s true that I can tolerate bitter vegetables more than she can.”

“And my Ancestry Painting for Chromosome 8 is a work of art! The blend of colors reflects my Asian and European ancestry (I’m from Pakistan). Many people were intrigued when I used an image of this chromosome as my profile picture on Facebook!”

Iram on being a 23andMe employee:
“I love the energy in the office. Everyone is excited about being part of the team and working towards designing the ultimate service for our customers. I appreciate the willingness of everyone here to listen to wild new ideas — and that I’ve had the luxury of implementing a few of them!”


Think you have the right stuff to join forces with Iram on the product team? Check out our jobs page now!

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Can you explain why there’s no gene for Crohn’s disease?

If you know the answers to these questions, we want you to know this: 23andMe is looking to hire an editor who is adept with scientific copy and concepts. The Science Editor will edit copy generated by 23andMe scientists and science writers for grammar, style, scientific accuracy and clarity. The position requires both excellent editing skills and an ability to convey difficult scientific concepts for an audience that encompasses all levels of expertise.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field.
• Graduate training desirable, but not required.
• Journalism training and/or experience preferred.
• Ability to convey complex scientific concepts in clear and entertaining prose for non-scientists.
• Interest in or basic knowledge of genetics and anthropology.
• Broad familiarity with different biological disciplines.

Interested? Feel free to email us directly at jobs@23andme.com, or head over to our careers site and apply directly at https://www.23andme.com/about/jobs/ (it’s listed under ‘Science’).

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Most of these questions focus on the transition from academia into a startup environment (a leap many of our current employees have taken), and what the future might hold for someone who chooses to make this transition. We pride ourselves on having built a unique blend of top-notch science, engineering, design and operational talent, and have created an environment and culture that we feel fosters creativity, innovation, collaboration and fun.

But don’t believe me – here are some impressions from 23andMe scientists who have made the transition …

Serge Saxonov, PhD
Founding R&D Architect

You may wonder, what is it like to work at 23andme? I can tell you — it’s intense and it’s enormous fun.

I came to 23andMe in the summer of 2006 as employee 1.5 (an Irish chap, named Brian Naughton, and I came together as the company’s first two hires.), having just finished a PhD in bioinformatics. While in grad school I sensed that I would enjoy the startup environment, but it’s hard to tell until you actually try. Looking back, I’d encourage anyone with a similar inclination to give it a shot.

When people ask me what do I enjoy the most about my job, it’s hard to pick a single answer, but several points invariably come to mind:

* I love working on something that feels valuable. I find this a sharp contrast to academia, where goals often have little to do with making useful things.
* I love the intensity of the work. We strive to give as much value to our users as quickly as possible while doing novel science, solving complex engineering problems and dealing with tricky UI challenges.
* I love the potential of the company. This may sound trite, but it applies to us and not to many other startups: if we are successful, 23andMe will truly change the world and affect the lives of countless people.

Most importantly, many of the reasons above would sound hollow had we not managed to build a spectacularly talented team of fun and easy-going people.

Joanna Mountain, PhD
Sr. Director, Research

As a scientist I have found the transition from academia for industry to be both exciting and rewarding. I suspect that the excitement and rewards stem from the unique culture here at 23andMe. For one thing, the company places a great deal of emphasis on scientific integrity and discovery. The company’s founders consistently support my goals of ensuring the scientific accuracy of our service and of pursuing research. Our scientific consultants and members of our Scientific Advisory Board are not only experts within their fields, but also accessible and supportive. It is for these reasons, I believe, that we have garnered the respect of many members of the broader scientific community. The second factor underlying the excitement and rewards is the company’s culture of interaction: the emphasis on teamwork, the steady focus on shared goals, and the sense of humor that permeates the sometimes heated but always respectful discussions over how we can provide the best Personal Genomics service possible.

Andro Hsu, PhD
Content Manager

The big difference between academia and working at 23andMe is that we consider our educational (and to some extent, entertainment) mission as important as our goal of performing cutting-edge scientific research. We rely on the goodwill of our customers to help us with our research goals, and one of the ways we do that is to keep them coming back to our site. Our customers wouldn’t have joined if they weren’t interested in learning something about themselves, and we take very seriously the presentation and clarity of our content and features so that they’ll keep coming back to learn more. Because what we do spans so many disciplines, the 23andMe team has a wide variety of skills: from writing to statistics, from graphic design to programming. Working with this many moving parts presents a lot of challenges, but when the final product comes together and we take a step back to wipe the sweat off our foreheads, it’s really quite amazing to see what we’ve been able to do, and to hear feedback from happy customers.

Joyce Tung, PhD
Human Geneticist

Leaving academia is hardly ever encouraged – after all your P.I. is in academia, and enjoys it, and generally can’t see why you would want to leave (at least if you’re doing reasonably well). One result of this is it’s not easy to get exposed to the “wider world.” It’s much easier to go on to an academic postdoc because you know what to expect there.

I decided before I finished grad school that I was not going to be a professor at a big research university like UCSF or Stanford. I tried to apply to jobs as I was finishing my degree, but I didn’t really seem to be qualified for anything interesting. So…I went to do a postdoc at Stanford and I got lucky there, because the lab and the work were really interesting.

About 7 months into my postdoc, I passed this flier in the hallway advertising positions at 23andMe, and just thought it was the coolest thing ever. I didn’t feel comfortable about leaving my postdoc yet, but fortunately the people at 23andMe thought it was okay if I just did some consulting work.

I really think I was unusually lucky, because I got to learn a lot about the company and what it might be like to work here, and I didn’t even really have to leave the security of my lab! Still, it took me 6 months to decide to leave my postdoc for 23andMe, and another 3 months to actually do it. I had a LOT of concerns: What if the startup fails in a year and I’m out of a job? Will I have gotten sufficient experience to be marketable for another job? Are there even other jobs at other companies that are anything like this? Am I making myself less attractive to a regular biotech company? Will I miss doing research?

Six months later, I don’t regret leaving the bench. And we’re starting to do research ourselves here, which is super exciting, and so I don’t really feel like I’m missing anything by not staying in academia.

So there you have it. If you are a brilliant scientist, an extraordinary engineer or have other talents you are eager to lend, feel free to visit our career site or email us directly at jobs@23andme.com

Check back soon for more insight into careers at 23andMe; next time we’ll talk a little about engineering.

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