Ontology Architect
We're looking for an Ontology Architect to join our team in a remote working mode with occasional onsite visits to Barcelona, Spain. In this role, you will lead a strategic, enterprise-wide knowledge architecture initiative for a global pharmaceutical organization. You will design the conceptual foundations of the Enterprise Ontology Architecture Blueprint, develop frameworks and tooling for consistent ontology contribution and deliver production-ready artifacts that support data engineering, regulatory teams and AI/ML use cases.
This position combines strategic architecture leadership with hands-on delivery, allowing you to establish foundational standards while shaping how the enterprise models and connects its knowledge assets.
Responsibilities
- Define and govern the Enterprise Ontology Architecture Blueprint for the organization
- Manage the ontology lifecycle, including versioning, alignment, and impact assessments
- Advise internal teams (data engineering, clinical, regulatory, AI/ML) on semantic web standards and practices
- Facilitate ontology working groups to ensure consistency and cross-domain integration
- Align internal ontologies with external standards such as W3C, HL7, EDQM, IDMP and OBO Foundry guidelines
- Create documentation, design patterns and governance frameworks for reusable ontology components
- Support adoption by running training sessions, workshops and mentoring domain teams
- Deliver demonstrators and proofs of concept to validate architecture and create stakeholder value
Requirements
- 7+ years of experience in semantic technologies, knowledge engineering or information architecture
- Proven expertise in OWL 2, RDF/RDFS, SPARQL and related semantic web standards
- Hands-on experience with graph databases (e.g., Neo4j, Amazon Neptune, Stardog, Ontotext)
- Strong understanding of ontology design patterns, modular approaches and upper ontology alignment
- Familiarity with pharmaceutical standards like IDMP, MedDRA, SNOMED CT, CDISC, HL7 FHIR
- Practical knowledge of SHACL for data shape validation
- Experience delivering architectural artefacts such as blueprints, design recommendations or pattern libraries
- Proficiency in ontology tooling (Protégé, ROBOT, OntoGraph or equivalent)
- Excellent communication skills to collaborate across technical and non-technical teams
Nice to have
- Experience with regulatory information management systems or clinical data platforms
- Familiarity with ontology CI/CD pipelines and automation (e.g., GitHub Actions)
- Knowledge of LLM-assisted ontology generation or Azure AI tools
- Contributions to standards organizations (OBO Foundry, W3C, HL7)
- Advanced degree (Master’s or PhD) in Knowledge Engineering, Bioinformatics, Computational Linguistics or related fields
