Ontology Manager

About the role

We’re looking for an Ontology Manager to own and evolve the organisational ontology that sits at the heart of Nscale’s Foundry implementation — the single consumption point through which all workflow projects access structured, governed data.

This is a central, high-visibility role in the Operations department, reporting to the Nirvana Programme Lead. You’ll partner closely with Use Case Leads, Data Source Developers, the Data Lead, and Data Governance and Compliance teams to shape how Nscale’s real-world operations are modelled, structured, and made available across the platform.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Own the development of the ontology from the existing model and production pipelines, ensuring it serves as the consumption point for all workflow projects.
• Manage the ontology backlog, prioritising change requests and triaging them to other teams where required.
• Evaluate requests for new objects and other ontology changes with a clear view of their impact on the broader organisational ontology and its long-term roadmap.
• Partner with Use Case Leads and Data Source Developers on requests for new data sources to be ingested into Foundry.
• Take a central role in new use case architecture and data sourcing discussions to ensure alignment with the existing ontology and programme-wide strategy.
• Own ontology maintenance and develop a deep understanding of relevant data sources for each use case.
• Collaborate with Data Source Developers to understand data sources, plan integration into the ontology, and support use case teams in understanding the impact of ontology design decisions.
• Work with Data Governance and Compliance teams to ensure access to the ontology and data sources is implemented in line with internal governance procedures.
• Develop scalable processes for governance checks in ontology development and maintenance.
• Work closely with the Ontology Lead and Data Lead to ensure alignment between the ontology, data ingestion, and maintenance processes.
• Develop the ontology in alignment with the programme-wide roadmap and long-term strategy.

Basic Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in data architecture, ontology design, data modeling, data engineering, analytics engineering, enterprise data platforms, or a related field.
• 3+ years overseeing complex cross-functional data initiatives.
• Experience designing conceptual, logical, or semantic data models.
• Hands-on experience with data pipelines and production data workflows.
• Strong knowledge of databases, schemas, metadata, and data quality.
• Experience partnering across engineering, operations, governance, and business teams.
• Excellent communication with technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Palantir Foundry, semantic layers, ontologies, or knowledge graphs.
• Experience in AI, cloud infrastructure, or high-growth technology companies.
• Experience with data governance, lineage, and access controls.
• Track record of influencing senior stakeholders.