Why this role exists
Hospitals hold huge amounts of clinical data that could answer real research questions, yet most of it sits unused. It is scattered across incompatible systems, and sharing it raises serious privacy issues: the classic way, copying patient data into a central database, no longer holds up.
At Agora Labs we're building a new way to do Real-World Evidence:
Data stays where it is. It never leaves the hospital. What reaches researchers is privacy-preserving.
Privacy guaranteed by math, not just procedures. We use differential privacy, synthetic data and mathematical anonymization, so researchers get high clinical and statistical value without exposing a single patient.
International standards from day one. Hospital data are restructured into OMOP and HL7 FHIR, so they are comparable across centers and countries.
Built for what comes next. Federated learning and AI applied to clinical research, with data made truly usable, the way the European Health Data Space (EHDS) envisions.
Your role is to make all of this work in the real world, inside real hospitals.
Level
Hands-on work with clinical or hospital data. We care about what you can do, not the years on your CV.
Salary
€29,000–38,000 gross per year, depending on experience
Where
Remote, with some in-person days and travel to hospitals across Italy (~25%)
Contract
Permanent, with a probation period to get to know each other· Start: ASAP
What you'll actually do
Protocol to data: read a study protocol and work out which variables it needs, ranked by priority and with the clinical reasoning behind each one.
Data hunting: find where those data live in the hospital (clinical records, labs, pharmacy, pathology, registries) and who owns them.
Feasibility: check with clinicians and data managers what exists, over which period, for how many patients and how complete it is.
Standards: help map hospital data to OMOP and FHIR, and document every mapping decision.
Data quality: profile first data extracts and spot what doesn't add up.
Data Catalogue: keep our map of hospital data up to date, so every new project starts from what we already know.
Industry to hospital: turn a pharma or medtech request into a project a hospital can actually deliver.
A week in the role
Monday
A new protocol arrives. You turn it into a list of variables, ranked by priority.
Tuesday
A call with a hospital data manager: do those variables exist, and for how many patients?
Wednesday
On site at a hospital, with clinicians and IT.
Thursday
You profile a first extract, check how it maps to OMOP and flag the gaps.
Friday
You update the Data Catalogue and share what you learned with the product and tech teams.
What you'll learn
How hospital data really work, from the clinical record to the database. How a real-world evidence study is designed. OMOP and FHIR in practice. How privacy technologies (differential privacy, synthetic data, federated approaches) are applied to real clinical data. You'll work day to day with the Head of Clinical Data Valorization, with real responsibility from the start, and with a clear path toward Data Strategy, Data Stewardship or RWE Project Management.
You'll fit if you…
are at ease talking to a doctor, an IT engineer and a business person, sometimes all in the same day;
learn fast and don't need perfect instructions;
are precise about definitions and data, and pragmatic about everything else;
see a problem, say so, and propose a fix.
It's probably not for you if…
you want a fixed routine: we're a startup, and many things we're building together;
you'd rather not travel: hospitals are where the real work happens;
you want to train AI models all day: you'll work alongside our data science team, but your job is to understand the data, not to model it.
What you need
Must-haves: a Master's degree in a life-sciences, health or data field; fluent Italian and professional English; experience with clinical or hospital data.
Nice to have: SQL, Python or R; familiarity with OMOP, FHIR and clinical coding systems such as ICD, SNOMED CT or LOINC; ethics committee submissions or GCP training; a third language.
