Nathan McBarr

Software Engineer

Headway

Dec 2025 - Current (9 months)

Software Engineer

Baton

Nov 2023 - Dec 2025 (2 years 2 months)

Software Engineer

Benchling

Jan 2022 - Apr 2023 (1 year 4 months)

• Collaborated with designers to visualize biological connections between entities stored on the electronic lab notebook. Built a UI, backend for computation, dashboards to monitor performance, and test suite to avoid regressions. • Ideated and built workflow to convert biological data, helping users onboard to newly supported biomolecules. Communicated frequently with engineers on other teams to identify the best conversion strategy and establish workflow ownership. • Implemented persistence and database layers for a new biological entity type. Iterated with product manager to parse concrete requirements from ambiguous areas in the specification. Wrote tech plans to solicit feedback and build consensus from other engineers.

Software Engineer 1

Zymergen

Aug 2021 - Oct 2021 (3 months)

• Built pipelines that transform raw application data into actionable metrics on laboratory machine use, replacing four hours of manual calculations. • Co-Designed and developed a label printing app for laboratory media. Built the front end and connected it to printing endpoints.

Associate Software Engineer

Zymergen

Feb 2021 - Aug 2021 (7 months)

• Enhanced laboratory workflow software by adding processes that automatically detect the quality of wetlab measurements. Built a UI, backend, and test suite for each process. • Improved stability of a Restful web service by consolidating business logic spread across multiple endpoints. • Rewrote software tools collected from company scientists into production quality codebase. • Addressed automatic alerts and user reported errors during on-call shifts by following runbooks, searching logs, and reading dashboards.

Product Support Engineer

Zymergen

May 2019 - Feb 2021 (1 year 10 months)

• Supported proprietary software by investigating user reported errors, escalating to relevant software teams, and prioritizing responses. • Reduced spending by evaluating how Zymergen’s instance of a bioinformatics platform could be combined with one used at an acquired company. • Maintained our team’s repository of scripts written to correct laboratory data and unblock workflows. • Designed a workflow to simplify communication during software incidents. Used a script to assign handles for on-call engineers, slack channels to triage errors, and JIRA tickets to track follow up work.

Computational Biology Research Associate

University of Washington Bioengineering

Aug 2018 - Feb 2019 (7 months)

Working part time to validate and further develop a fatty acid metabolic model developed during the summer of 2017.

Biomedical Design Engineer

Weill Cornell Medicine

Aug 2017 - May 2018 (10 months)

• Collaborated as part of a 6 student team to build a device that improved intervertebral disk repair following discectomies • Programmed and designed the electronic control system using Java-based Arduino IDE to code an Adafruit trinket microcontroller • Communicated with surgeons and performed background research to ensure the device was commercially viable and met FDA regulatory standards

Graduate Teaching Assistant in Cellular Engineering

Cornell University College of Engineering

Aug 2017 - Dec 2017 (5 months)

• Facilitated a course in Cellular Engineering consisting of 80 undergraduate students and two other TAs • Administered academic labs, hosted office hours, and graded assignments • Prepared and organized labs that involved mammalian cell culture, ELISA assays, and growth curve evaluation

Computational Biology Intern

University of Washington Bioengineering

Jun 2017 - Aug 2017 (3 months)

• Contributed to the NSR physiome project, an ongoing effort to create a comprehensive and accurate model of human physiology • Completed a computational model of fatty acid metabolism in heart muscle cells using Java-based JSIM software and primary literature • Learned and applied modeling techniques including validation using mass balance, sensitivity analysis, and parameter optimization

Research Assistant

Cornell University

Sep 2015 - May 2016 (9 months)

• Quantified the phenotype of Laupala crickets sampled in an ongoing sexual selection study • Performed cricket genotyping experiments that involved DNA extraction, restriction digest, and gel electrophoresis • Modified extraction protocols to increase quality of recovered DNA

Biological Technician

US Geological Survey USGS

May 2014 - Aug 2015 (1 year 4 months)

• Learned and applied a variety of molecular protocols over the course of two summers to contribute to ongoing biological studies • Ran and adjusted acrylamide electrophoresis gels to design and test PCR primers for common eider ducks • Banded Snow Geese during week of field work on the Alaska North Slope to analyze changing migratory routes of arctic birds

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