Internal analytics platform
From Fragmented Scripts to a Shared Platform - Building an Internal Analytics System for R&D
Context
Different platform teams had independently built their own tools and infrastructure to process and analyse data, which over time had produced a fragmented analytical landscape. Each team worked with different methods, scripts, and standards, with no shared system and no consistent way to evaluate performance across the organisation.
The Problem
The fragmentation created more than an efficiency problem — it made results difficult to compare across teams. When scientists used different methods on the same data, there was no reliable way to aggregate findings or build on each other's work. Time-to-insight was slow enough to create real bottlenecks in platform development cycles.
What I Did
I led the definition and delivery of a cloud-based analytics platform to standardise how R&D teams evaluated sequencing performance. This involved running requirements-gathering sessions with cross-functional scientific stakeholders, authoring product specifications with process diagrams to make workflows legible across technical and non-technical audiences, and managing the backlog and weekly delivery syncs with the engineering team. I also mentored scientists across two offices on the new workflows and reusable code practices, so adoption wasn't dependent on a single point of knowledge.
The Outcome
Standardising the platform reduced time-to-insight by 70%. Scientists could build on shared workflows rather than starting from scratch, and results became comparable across teams for the first time. Platform performance reporting shifted from an occasional exercise to a reliable weekly cadence for product and scientific leadership.
What This Illustrates
Fragmentation in analytical workflows tends to get normalised over time — each team's approach feels reasonable in isolation, even as the aggregate picture becomes harder to work with. Part of the work here was reframing a workflow inefficiency as a platform risk worth solving, and building enough shared understanding across stakeholders to move forward with a common system.