George Grant
Principal Software Engineer, Data Science And Data Engineering Platform
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolGeorge Grant is a Principal Software Engineer with over 12 years at the Broad Institute and a two-decade-plus track record building robust data science and genomics engineering platforms. He blends deep backend Java expertise with a focus on data formats and performance—contributing to foundational bioinformatics open-source projects like htsjdk and Picard (notable for fixes to VCF/VCF header handling, interval/CIGAR logic, and async bgzip VCF output). As an engineering manager turned principal, he combines people leadership with hands-on code quality and testing rigor, routinely migrating and refactoring critical sequencing code. Based in Cambridge, MA, he pairs a PhD-trained scientific mindset with electrical engineering roots, which helps him translate complex genomics requirements into reliable production systems. An often-overlooked strength is his sustained open-source stewardship in specialist HTS tooling, signaling both domain depth and long-term commitment to reproducible computational biology.
12 years of coding experience
9 years of employment as a software developer
Ph.D., Neuroscience, Ph.D., Neuroscience at University of California, BerkeleyBS, Electrical Engineering, BS, Electrical Engineering at Tufts UniversityIndependent Coursework, Independent Coursework at Harvard Extension School
Github Skills (14)
bioinformatics10
javas10
genomics10
cra10
variants10
bam10
java10
vcf-files10
sam10
testing10
ram9
unit-testing9
java-api8
sequencing8
Programming languages (7)
Github contributions (5)
samtools/htsjdk
Sep 2014 - Apr 2021
A Java API for high-throughput sequencing data (HTS) formats.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & QA Engineer
Back-end Developer & QA EngineerContributions:1 release, 1 review, 37 commits in 6 years 8 months
Contributions summary:George primarily focused on improving the `htsjdk` Java API. Their contributions involved fixing bugs related to VCF header assembly and refactoring code. The user also migrated code from Picard and implemented improvements for interval list and CIGAR handling. Additionally, they fixed a broken unit test, indicating a focus on testing and code quality.
sequencednabamcramsequencing-data
broadinstitute/picard
Jan 2014 - May 2022
A set of command line tools (in Java) for manipulating high-throughput sequencing (HTS) data and formats such as SAM/BAM/CRAM and VCF.
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:16 releases, 102 reviews, 140 commits in 8 years 5 months
Contributions summary:George primarily contributed to the development and improvement of the Picard suite of tools, focusing on features related to variant calling and data manipulation within the high-throughput sequencing domain. Their work included enabling asynchronous I/O for writing bgzipped VCFs, which likely improved performance, and adding a MateCigar string to the SAMRecord for representing the cigar string of the read's mate. They also implemented logic to validate the MateCigar string, reflecting their involvement in the core functionality of the tools and validation processes. The user further contributed to the conversion of gtc files to VCF files.
sequencebamcramcommand-line-toolsfasta
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