Business Systems Analyst - Semantic Layer

About the role

The Opportunity As a Business Systems Analyst for the Semantic Layer program, you will serve as the critical bridge between MetLife’s insurance business domains and the technical teams building the enterprise semantic layer. You will translate complex insurance concepts into formally structured ontologies and business metadata, enabling consistent, governed, and reusable data definitions across the organization.

Responsibilities

• Semantic Layer Design & Implementation Lead requirements gathering and functional design for MetLife enterprise semantic layer, translating business concepts into structured semantic models.
• Define and maintain the business glossary, logical data models, and semantic mappings that align insurance terminology across business units and systems.
• Collaborate with data architects and engineers to implement semantic layer components in platforms such as Stardog/ Dremio/ AtScale Semantic Layer or equivalent tools.
• Design metric definitions, KPI hierarchies, and dimensional models that reflect insurance business logic (e.g., earned premium, incurred loss, persistency, claim frequency).
• Ontology & Business Metadata Implementation Design and implement insurance-domain ontologies using standards such as OWL, RDF, SKOS, or industry frameworks (e.g., ACORD, OMG Insurance Domain Analysis Model).
• Develop and maintain the enterprise business metadata catalog — defining data assets, ownership, lineage, classifications, and business definitions within tools such as Collibra, Alation, or Apache Atlas.
• Establish and enforce metadata governance standards: term definitions, synonym management, hierarchical classifications, and cross-domain concept alignment.
• Map physical data assets (tables, columns, APIs) to business concepts and ontological entities, enabling semantic search and automated data discovery.
• Partner with Data Governance and stewardship teams to ensure ontology and metadata artifacts meet regulatory, compliance, and audit requirements.
• Insurance Domain Analysis Apply deep understanding of insurance product lines — Group Benefits, Life, Disability, Dental, Vision, and Voluntary — to accurately model business entities, events, and relationships.
• Translate insurance operational concepts (policy lifecycle, claims adjudication, underwriting, billing, reinsurance, regulatory reporting) into precise semantic definitions.
• Identify cross-LOB data harmonization opportunities by standardizing entities such as Employer, Policies, Claims and Broker, and Pricing across disparate source systems.
• Support regulatory and statutory reporting requirements by ensuring semantic models align with NAIC, GAAP, and IFRS 17 data constructs.
• Stakeholder Collaboration & Delivery Work directly with business owners, data stewards, analytics engineers, and AI/ML teams to gather requirements and validate semantic model designs.
• Collaborate with engineering and architecture teams to support delivery across: Relational and non-relational databases (e.g., SQL, NoSQL). Multi-database environments and cross-platform data integration.
• Facilitate workshops and working sessions to establish shared vocabulary and resolve definitional conflicts across business units.
• Produce clear, well-structured functional specifications, data flow diagrams, semantic model documentation, and data dictionaries.
• Lead and mentor junior analysts; promote best practices in semantic modeling and metadata management across the D&A organization.
• Operate in an Agile delivery model: manage backlog items, write user stories, and participate in sprint ceremonies with cross-functional teams.
• Data Quality & Governance Define data quality rules and validation logic at the semantic layer to ensure consistency and trustworthiness of business metrics.
• Capture data lineage end-to-end — from source systems through transformation pipelines to semantic layer consumption — within the enterprise metadata platform.
• Monitor and govern semantic layer usage, identifying gaps, conflicts, or misalignments as new data sources and use cases emerge.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, Data Management, or a related discipline.
• 8+ years of overall experience, including 5+ years in data management, business analysis, or data governance roles.
• Demonstrated experience in semantic layer design or implementation (e.g., dbt Semantic Layer, Stardog, AtScale, Cube, LookML, or similar).
• Proficiency in business metadata management platforms (Collibra, Alation, Informatica, Apache Atlas, or equivalent).
• Experience writing detailed functional requirements, data dictionaries, and semantic model specifications.
• Strong understanding of: Database technologies (SQL, NoSQL, distributed systems). Multi-database and hybrid data environments.
• Exposure to: Data virtualization technologies. Ontology / semantic modeling concepts. Familiarity with modern cloud-based data platforms (Databricks, Azure Synapse, etc.).

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with ACORD data standards, OMG Insurance Domain Analysis Model (IDAM), or similar insurance data frameworks.
• Familiarity with knowledge graph technologies (Neo4j, Amazon Neptune, GraphDB) and SPARQL query language.
• Experience with all of the following cloud data platforms: Azure Synapse, Azure Databricks, Snowflake, or Databricks Unity Catalog.
• Exposure to AI/ML pipelines and understanding of how semantic layers enable LLM-based analytics or RAG architecture.
• Understanding of IFRS 17, NAIC reporting, or other insurance regulatory data requirements.
• Strong knowledge of the insurance industry — product lines, operational processes, and data structures.
• Hands-on experience designing or implementing ontologies using OWL, RDF, SKOS, or equivalent forms.
• Proficiency in data modeling tools (ERWIN, ER/Studio, dbt, or similar).
• DevOps familiarity: Git, Azure DevOps, CI/CD for data pipeline and semantic layer versioning.
• Experience with FHIM, FIBO (Financial Industry Business Ontology), or similar financial/insurance ontology standards.

Pay

$120,000 - $161,600

Schedule

This is a hybrid role requiring a minimum of 3 days per week in office.