Jobs / United States / Natera INC
Associate Director, Service Engineering
Natera INC · 🇺🇸 Austin, TX
Sponsorship verdict
Sponsorship possible
One solid signal, not two — worth applying, and worth asking about sponsorship early.
- Employer is on a government sponsor recordThe US Department of Labor certified 48 H-1B/E-3 labor condition applications for this employer between Oct 2025 and Jun 2026 (latest Jun 2026) — the step every H-1B hire needs first. USCIS also records 12 H-1B approvals in FY2023. Source: LCA disclosure data (US Department of Labor (OFLC)).
- The posting doesn’t mention sponsorshipSilence isn’t a refusal — ask the recruiter before investing much time.
- No salary bar for this routeH-1B has no fixed salary bar: the employer must pay at least the prevailing wage for the role and area. Cap-subject employers enter a lottery weighted by wage level. Source: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/29/2025-23853/weighted-selection-process-for-registrants-and-petitioners-seeking-to-file-cap-subject-h-1b, rules effective 2026-02-27.
- What Natera INC paid sponsored hires in similar roles1 certified filing for “Research Associate 1, IVD Prod Development” (Biological Technicians) in TX: $53k–$53k, median $53k. Most were filed at wage level I (100%) — 1 lottery entry, ≈15% projected selection odds for cap-subject employers. Source: US Department of Labor LCA disclosure data (Oct 2025 – Jun 2026).
- Confirmed live todayWhen a source last listed this job as open.
US H-1B: cap-subject employers enter a lottery weighted by wage level — Level I gets 1 entry, Level IV gets 4 (DHS projected selection odds ≈15% at Level I to ≈61% at Level IV). Universities and non-profit research employers are cap-exempt. The $100,000 fee for new petitions from abroad is currently blocked by a court order (appeal pending).
A verdict summarises public evidence; it is not legal advice and never a guarantee — the employer and the immigration authority decide. Sign in to factor in where you can already work.
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Sponsor Radar — Natera INC
The US Department of Labor certified 48 H-1B/E-3 labor condition applications for this employer between Oct 2025 and Jun 2026 (latest Jun 2026) — the step every H-1B hire needs first. USCIS also records 12 H-1B approvals in FY2023. Source: LCA disclosure data (US Department of Labor (OFLC)).
Past sponsorship or register membership never guarantees sponsorship for this vacancy or for you. Full Sponsor Radar for Natera INC →
About the role
Overview The Associate Director of Service Engineering leads the reliability, availability, and operational excellence of Natera’s lab-facing platforms. This role ensures that clinical systems, laboratory equipment workflows, and data pipelines operate with high reliability, scalability, and compliance in a regulated healthcare environment. You will lead a team responsible for production stability, incident response, and service health, partnering closely with Production Engineering, Lab Operations, Bioinformatics, Infrastructure, Facilities, and Compliance to support mission-critical genetic testing and diagnostics. Key Responsibilities Leadership & Team Development • Lead, mentor, and scale a team of Service Engineers / SREs supporting clinical production systems • Establish clear expectations around ownership, on-call readiness, and operational excellence • Drive hiring, onboarding, performance management, and career growth • Foster a blameless, learning-oriented culture focused on patient impact and reliability Service Reliability & Production Operations • Own reliability and availability for production services supporting laboratory operations, reporting, and customer delivery • Define and manage SLAs, SLOs, and operational KPIs aligned with clinical and business priorities • Lead major incident response, ensuring rapid triage, clear communication, and thorough post-incident reviews • Oversee on-call rotations, escalation paths, and operational playbooks • Ensure operational readiness and go-live support for new assays, pipelines, and platform capabilities Technical Strategy & Execution • Partner with Engineering and Development teams to design resilient, fault-tolerant systems • Drive best practices for monitoring, alerting, logging, and observability across lab and cloud platforms • Reduce operational toil through automation, tooling, and process improvements • Advocate for reliability, performance, and scalability requirements early in the development lifecycle Cross-Functional Collaboration • Act as a primary operational partner to Lab Operations, Bioinformatics, Engineering, and Development. • Translate clinical, regulatory, and operational needs into technical reliability requirements • Provide clear, executive-level updates on service health, incidents, and risk mitigation plans Compliance, Security & Risk Management • Ensure systems meet healthcare and regulatory requirements (e.g., HIPAA, CLIA, CAP, SOX) • Partner with Quality and Compliance on audits, access controls, change management, and incident response • Own disaster recovery, business continuity planning, and periodic testing for critical systems • Ensure production changes follow validated and compliant release processes Required Qualifications • 8+ years of experience in service engineering, engineering roles • 5+ years of people management experience leading technical teams • Strong experience operating highly available, mission-critical production systems • Proven expertise in incident management and root cause analysis • Hands-on experience with CMMS and LIMs environments • Strong written and verbal communication skills, especially in high-stakes situations Preferred Qualifications • Experience in healthcare, biotech, or other regulated environments • Familiarity with laboratory information systems (LIMS), data pipelines, or bioinformatics workflows • Experience with infrastructure and automation tools • Experience defining SLOs/SLAs for systems with clinical or patient impact What Success Looks Like • Reliable, predictable operation of lab-facing systems • Reduced incident frequency and faster recovery times • Strong partnership with Lab Ops, Engineering, and Compliance • A high-performing Service Engineering