Senior Scientific Lead

Senior Scientific Lead DECTRIS is a successful and expanding high-tech company that develops and produces X-ray and electron detectors. Our detectors are used worldwide in large-scale research facilities and in industry. Their unique properties enable scientific breakthroughs in life sciences and material sciences. Our more than 170 employees are located in Switzerland, the United States and Japan. At DECTRIS, we combine innovation and development with agile industry practices. As a spin-off of the Institute and by focusing on the needs of our customers, we are able to combine scientific excellence with qualified service and industrial know-how. Our scientists as well as our technical and commercial experts ensure that our customers benefit from the latest technologies. DECTRIS values collaborative working rather than traditional hierarchy and is guided by the principles of Sociocracy 3.0. 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 We'd love: 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)