The Breeding Scientist is a unique, exciting opportunity for an individual who is passionate about vegetable improvement to develop high-performing germplasm with a focus on yield, agronomic and horticulture traits, disease tolerance, and consumer traits. This individual will directly interact with key partners throughout global Bayer Crop Science to co-design the strategy, methods, and tools necessary to deliver superior parental lines and assess first look hybrids to enable delivering high quality products to our customers. This role offers the opportunity to work with the world's largest global veg germplasm pools and incorporate advanced breeding techniques and predictive analytics to drive precision plant breeding.  This position will be a key member of the tomato breeding team in the America’s, contributing across processing and fresh market tomato breeding programs to continue to deliver first-in-class hybrid products. 

YOUR TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The primary responsibilities of this role, Breeding Scientist, are to: 

• Have a global responsibility for processing tomato line development breeding and member in 1-3 collaborative pipeline teams;
• Be responsible to generate quality data in the innovation pipeline, will partners with other tomato breeders and influence advancement of new products, provide product characterization to Market Development, Sales and Marketing teams;
• Contribute to cutting edge discovery projects and germplasm enhancement efforts dedicated to improving tomato germplasm and breeding methodologies, including but not limited to Genomic Selection implementation and simulations;
• Bring new skill sets to vegetable breeding, big data analysis, predictive analytics;
• Work with data scientists and scientists in breeding technology to enable novel breeding schemes: e.g. genomic selection and prescriptive trait integration;
• Contribute to managing and actively participating in various components of a commercial tomato breeding program which includes aspects of line development, hybrid creation, testing and product advancement in assigned target segments;
• Generate and test new ideas in breeding schemes, execute proof of concept experiments and simulations that result in data-driven decisions, increased efficiencies and genetic gain;
• Drive collaborations with data analytics scientists, software tool developers, molecular diagnostic and genomics teams, plant health researchers and field-testing teams;
• Document experiments, file invention disclosures and communicate conclusions in reports and presentations;
• Create data summaries that allow data driven decisions for the breeding programs;
• Learn, participate in and contribute to research and development projects across Bayer R&D organization;
• Excellence in project management skills, scientific curiosity, result orientation, collaborative skills and ability to successfully deploy new discoveries in germplasm enhancement and/or hybrid assessments and advancements;
• Approach complex problems with original thinking and scientific principles to design and interpret scientific experiments, with a focused goal of delivering value to the hybrid product pipeline;
• Be responsible for operational budget ($5M) and delivering a global tomato portfolio (include annual revenue);
• Develop and simulate financial and operational models;
• Prepared to lead a breeding program when needs / opportunities arise.

WHO YOU ARE

Your success will be driven by your demonstration of our LIFE values.  More specifically related to this position, Bayer seeks an incumbent who possesses the following:

Required Qualifications:

• Ph.D. (or completion within six months from hire date) with at least three years of relevant experience in Plant Breeding or Quantitative Genetics or related field of study such as Population Genetics, Plant Biology or Crop Science;
• Strong background in genetics, statistical analysis, experimental design and molecular marker applications;
• Experience working with database applications, spreadsheets and visualization software;
• Ability to lead and influence key stakeholders through challenges and opportunities, facilitates solutions;
• Result oriented individual that thrives in a collaborative team environment;
• Capacity to work with cross-functional teams, build broad networks and gain advocacy with others to achieve common goals;
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Familiarity with data science and a demonstrated ability to perform data analysis with large datasets;
• High proficiency in "R" other programing skills.