VP, Product Engineering, Genetics Portfolio
Reports to: SVP, Laboratory Systems and Product Engineering
Work Model: Remote (with periodic travel to San Carlos, CA and Austin, TX)
Position Summary
The Vice President of Product Engineering, Genetics Portfolio is a senior executive leadership role responsible for the software product strategy, roadmap, and delivery for Natera’s Women’s Health, Organ Health, and Emerging Business/Rare Disease Diagnostics business units. This leader acts as the primary technical liaison to the business unit General Managers and is the single person accountable for the vertical’s success in these high-growth areas.
You will oversee a dedicated team of Digital Product Managers (DPMs), Product Solution Architects, and Product Integration Engineers. Your organization is responsible for defining "what" needs to be built to support a diverse portfolio, including Horizon (Carrier Screening), Empower (Hereditary Cancer Screening), Renasight (Chronic Kidney Disease), Panorama (NIPT), and specialized panels for Rare Disease diagnostics. You will partner with the VP of Software Engineering to leverage a shared pool of ~350 engineers for the technical implementation of the roadmap.
In the first 90 days, the VP will establish deep partnerships with the GMs of Women’s Health, Organ Health, and Emerging Businesses to align on strategic goals. You will audit the existing Genetics and Rare Disease digital product roadmaps, identify critical gaps in the user experience, and establish a clear "service-level" relationship with the horizontal engineering teams.
Within the first year, you are expected to have successfully supported the commercialization of new products, driven measurable improvements to existing on-market products, and launched innovative software support for the Emerging Business/Rare Disease pipeline. Success will be reflected in product launch predictability, revenue enablement through new features, and a seamless digital experience that positions Natera as the market leader in reproductive, renal, and rare disease health.
Key Responsibilities
Vertical Product Strategy & Roadmap Ownership
- Define and own the multi-year software roadmap for the Genetics portfolio, including Women's Health, Organ Health, and Emerging Business / Rare Disease Diagnostics, ensuring alignment with clinical utility and revenue targets.
- Act as the Executive Sponsor for major pillar projects, ensuring they meet commercial expectations and quality standards through the entire product lifecycle.
- Lead the Digital Product Management team to translate complex clinical needs into technical requirements, prioritizing the backlog for maximum patient and business impact.
- Drive the strategy for Product Integration, ensuring a frictionless ordering and reporting experience across provider portals and EMR systems, Accessioning/LIMS, Lab Workflow Tracking, Bioinformatics Pipelines, and Tertiary Analysis and reporting systems.
Operational Excellence & Partnership
- Operate as a "servant-leader" customer of the centralized Engineering organization, providing clear requirements and priorities to enable efficient technical execution.
- Partner with the centralized PMO and the Software Engineering VP to ensure project milestones are hit and risks are mitigated before they impact launch dates.
- Collaborate with R&D and Laboratory Operations to ensure new assays—including those for emerging and rare disease markets—are launched with "automation-first" software that reduces manual burden.
- Track and report on portfolio-specific KPIs, including product performance, user adoption, and delivery velocity.
Leadership & Team Development
- Lead and mentor a specialized team of Product Solution Architects and Integration Engineers, fostering a culture of technical rigor and business empathy.
- Bridge the gap between scientific complexity (Genetics, Bioinformatics) and digital product simplicity, ensuring tools are intuitive for clinicians and internal lab staff.
- Manage the organizational transition from technology-focused component teams to mission-oriented cross-functional pods.
Regulatory & Clinical Quality
- Ensure all software products meet the stringent requirements of a CLIA/CAP-certified and FDA-regulated environment.
- Partner with Quality and Regulatory teams to ensure requirements and design controls are properly documented to support successful audits and submissions.
Qualifications
Required
- 15+ years of progressive experience in software product engineering or technology leadership, with a significant background in Clinical Genomics, Diagnostics, or Rare Disease.
- Demonstrated success leading complex, multi-product portfolios and managing senior leaders (Directors/Sr. Directors).
- Deep understanding of the software infrastructure (LIMS, Portals, EMR) required to support high-volume genetic testing at scale.
- Proven track record of managing high-stakes partnerships between business units and a centralized engineering execution arm.
Preferred
- Experience in product life cycle management, including supporting the commercialization of new diagnostics and driving continuous improvement for on-market products.
- Background in high-throughput Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) laboratory workflows.
- Advanced degree (Masters or Ph.D.) in Molecular Biology, Bioinformatics, or Computer Science.
OUR OPPORTUNITY
Natera™ is a global leader in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) testing, dedicated to oncology, women’s health, and organ health. Our aim is to make personalized genetic testing and diagnostics part of the standard of care to protect health and enable earlier and more targeted interventions that lead to longer, healthier lives.
The Natera team consists of highly dedicated statisticians, geneticists, doctors, laboratory scientists, business professionals, software engineers and many other professionals from world-class institutions, who care deeply for our work and each other. When you join Natera, you’ll work hard and grow quickly. Working alongside the elite of the industry, you’ll be stretched and challenged, and take pride in being part of a company that is changing the landscape of genetic disease management.
WHAT WE OFFER
Competitive Benefits - Employee benefits include comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life and disability plans for eligible employees and their dependents. Additionally, Natera employees and their immediate families receive free testing in addition to fertility care benefits. Other benefits include pregnancy and baby bonding leave, 401k benefits, commuter benefits and much more. We also offer a generous employee referral program!
For more information, visit www.natera.com.
Natera is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to ensuring a diverse and inclusive workplace environment, and welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives. Inclusive collaboration benefits our employees, our community and our patients, and is critical to our mission of changing the management of disease worldwide.
All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply, and will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, age, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with applicable laws.
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