Ontology Engineer

Job Title: Ontology Engineer

Location: Remote

NWEA is a division of HMH that supports students and educators through research, assessment solutions, policy and advocacy services, professional learning and school improvement services that fight for equity, drive classroom impact and push for systemic change in our educational communities. For nearly 50 years, NWEA has developed innovative pre‑K‑12 assessments, including their flagship interim assessment, MAP Growth and their reading fluency and comprehension assessment, MAP Reading Fluency.

For more information, visit NWEA.org to learn more.

The Ontology Engineer plays a pivotal role in shaping our organization's knowledge structure. They are responsible for developing and managing ontologies that underpin our information systems, facilitating better data organization and knowledge discovery.

• Develop and maintains logical, semantically rich, and extensible ontologies that define and structure knowledge and underpin the K‑12 education domain and HMH products.
• Supports integration between the ontology management system and source data management repositories, including triple store development and investigation by writing SPARQL queries against RDF, OWL or validating with SHACL.
• Ensures the accuracy and consistency of ontological structures by performing regular quality checks and updates as needed.
• Collaborates with cross‑functional teams to understand their information needs and provide ontological solutions that support their objectives.
• Creates comprehensive documentation for ontologies and knowledge graphs, making them accessible to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Coordinates with the Data engineering and operations, and content development teams to ensure the knowledge representation is aligned with enterprise data systems.

• Advanced degree in philosophy, computer science, information science, or quantitative field, or equivalent experience.
• Proficiency in ontology modeling languages such as RDF, OWL, or SHACL and vocabularies such as SKOS.
• Demonstrate advanced knowledge of ontology modeling languages such as RDF, OWL, or SHACL, and vocabularies like SKOS.
• Familiarity with query languages like SQL and SPARQL or other property graph query languages like Gremlin, open Cypher.
• Experience with semantic data integration and using graph databases/triple stores, including modeling tradeoffs, query optimization, and operational considerations for production use.
• Experience with ontologies, knowledge graphs, and/or semantic technologies such as Stardog, Protege, Semaphore, Pool Party, or related ontology management systems.
• Experience using foundational/top‑level ontologies, especially Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), Descriptive Ontology for Linguistic and Cognitive Engineering (DOLCE), Common Core Ontologies, or OBO Foundry.
• Experience integrating multiple disparate data sets into a common vocabulary and writing effective queries for use in a production environment.
• Be skilled in integrating multiple disparate data sets into a common vocabulary and writing effective queries for production environments.
• Hands‑on experience with high‑level programming and scripting languages, such as Python, R, and Java.
• Strong software engineering practices applied to semantic and analytics assets: git, pull requests/code review, test/validation practices (e.g., SHACL/dbt tests where applicable), and CI/CD‑aware release discipline.
• Excellent problem‑solving skills and easily adapt to new technologies, trends, and frameworks.

Salary range: 90k – 103k annually.

The application window for this position is anticipated to close March 3, 2025
. We encourage you to apply as soon as possible. The posting may be available after this date but is not guaranteed.

HMH is fully committed to Equal Employment Opportunity and to attracting, retaining, developing and promoting the most qualified employees without regard to race, gender, color, religion, sexual orientation, family status, marital status, pregnancy, gender identity, ethnic/national origin, ancestry, age, disability, military status, genetic predisposition, citizenship status, status as a disabled veteran, recently separated veteran, Armed Forces service medal veteran, other covered veteran, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law.

We are dedicated to providing a work environment free from discrimination and harassment, and where employees are treated with respect and dignity. We actively participate in E‑Verify.