Principal Software Engineer / Data Engineer (Onsite)

About the role

RTX, the world’s largest aerospace and defense company, is seeking a Data Engineer for an immediate onsite position in Richardson, TX (or Dulles, VA). The Data Engineer will be a key contributor to the program, responsible for designing semantic data models, ontologies, and knowledge graphs that connect raw operational data to AI‑ready intelligence.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain enterprise ontologies and knowledge graphs using standards such as OWL, RDF, and SPARQL.
• Collaborate with domain experts, data engineers, and business stakeholders to capture and formalize business concepts, relationships, and rules.
• Develop and manage taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, and semantic metadata schemas across operational and business domains.
• Integrate ontological structures with enterprise data platforms, AI/ML pipelines, and analytics environments.
• Partner with AI/ML Engineers and data scientists to ensure ontology structures support downstream model training, feature engineering, and inference pipelines.
• Define and enforce data governance standards for entity definitions, lineage tracking, and metadata management across enterprise platforms.
• Monitor ontology performance and usage patterns; proactively identify gaps and drive continuous improvement.
• Support integration of ontology layers with enterprise data products, dashboards, and reporting tools.
• Evaluate and implement ontology management tools and platforms, ensuring scalability and interoperability.
• Translate complex technical concepts into clear documentation for both technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Stay current with advancements in knowledge representation, semantic web technologies, and AI/ML techniques.

Qualifications

• Typically requires a degree in Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM) and 8 + years of relevant experience.
• Experience using OWL, RDF, RDFS, SPARQL, and related W3C semantic web standards.
• Proficiency with ontology development tools such as Protégé, TopBraid Composer, or similar.
• Experience developing conceptual, logical, and physical data models, as well as canonical data designs.
• Hands‑on experience with graph databases (e.g., Stardog, Neo4j, Amazon Neptune, Azure Cosmos DB for Gremlin) and graph query languages.
• Experience collaborating in cross‑functional Agile or DevOps environments.
• Active and transferable TS/SCI U.S. government‑issued security clearance required prior to start date; U.S. citizenship is required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with data fabric, data mesh, Lakehouse architectures, and cloud platforms (Azure, AWS).
• Background supporting digital thread, digital twin, and AI/ML programs.
• Experience mentoring or leading data‑modeling teams.
• Knowledge of linked‑data principles and experience publishing or consuming linked datasets.
• Exposure to ML/AI pipelines and practical experience enhancing them through semantic enrichment.
• Experience with LLM‑grounded knowledge graphs or retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) pipelines.
• Excellent analytical thinking with ability to translate ambiguous business requirements into formal semantic models.
• Strong skills in SQL, SPARQL, Cypher, and relational/NoSQL databases.
• Strong understanding of data governance, metadata management, and master data management (MDM) principles.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Life insurance
• Short‑term and long‑term disability coverage
• 401(k) match
• Flexible spending accounts
• Flexible work schedules
• Employee assistance program
• Employee Scholar Program
• Parental leave
• Paid time off and holidays
• Relocation assistance (eligible)
• Potential eligibility for short‑term and/or long‑term incentive compensation programs

Pay

Salary range: $107,500 – $204,500 USD (estimate representing all experience levels). Compensation may vary based on role, function, experience, location, education, and key skills.