Refer an Software Engineer, Get Your Genome Sequenced

June 23, 2011

By Kevin Davies 

June 23, 2011 | A Bay Area software company, DNAnexus, is offering a unique incentive for referrals to fill its latest software engineering recruiting drive: your full genome sequence. 

“We’re building a top-notch engineering team to architect the definitive data platform for DNA,” says CEO Andreas Sundquist. To incentivize individuals to refer those marquee candidates, for a limited time DNAnexus is dangling an eye-catching package: $20,000 + their entire genome sequenced. 

“There are a lot of creative ideas in the tech world for increasing awareness, leveraging networks, and incentivizing people to help identify top talent, and we thought... what's unique about our space? We're right at the cusp of a world where it's possible to sequence huge numbers of individuals, and where whole-genome sequencing is no longer off-limits to the general community. Our referral bonus is a reflection of our commitment to push the envelope and democratize access to the technology,” said Sundquist. 

Sundquist admits that the incentive bundle sounds a bit lavish, but he says, “it is not far out of line with what recruiting top talent costs. In order to build our technology vision, we're hiring only the very best software engineers out there -- no Perl-scripters need apply here.” 

Writing on the company blog, Sundquist offered some suggestions for what the lucky tipsters can do with their DNA sequence. “It will be your data, and you can do anything you want with it,” he added. “Hide it in a drawer, put your favorite parts on your business card, or post the whole thing on your web page. Maybe you’ll dive into the data and find that you’re related to Napoleon, or you have the gene for identifying good software engineering talent, or you may find out much to your surprise that you should change your diet and exercise more!”  

Another possibility would be to have your genome data stored and analyzed by DNAnexus, but that is entirely optional.  

Sundquist is looking to hire up to 20 experts in machine learning, computational genomics, algorithms, web services, data visualization and quality engineering. Previous knowledge of DNA is not required.  A maximum of ten submissions per person is allowed, but must be done with the candidates’ permission. Sundquist is still evaluating options for genome sequencing providers.