AI Engineer, Ontologies & Knowledge Graphs

Cadence; Livonia (MI); On-site; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Cadence is seeking an engineer who builds the data and interface layer that makes complex software products programmatically understandable. You will design schemas, construct knowledge graphs, and expose them through typed programmatic interfaces for downstream consumption.

You will develop ETL/ELT pipelines, maintain semantic data models, and build interfaces over the knowledge layer, collaborating with domain engineers to translate workflows into callable operations.

Qualifications

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, or similar.
• Strong Python; experience building and consuming REST APIs.
• Experience building data pipelines (ETL/ELT) over structured and unstructured data.
• Familiarity with graph databases and/or semantic/ontology modeling (RDF, OWL, property graphs, or equivalent).
• Experience with at least one agent framework (LangChain, LangGraph, AutoGen, CrewAI, or similar).
• Understanding of how LLMs consume context and call tools (retrieval, RAG, embeddings).
• Exposure to CAE/FEA/CFD or a related physical‑simulation or engineering domain.
• Comfortable working within unfamiliar or undocumented codebases.
• Systems thinker — able to decompose a complex legacy workflow into discrete, callable steps.

Responsibilities

• Build ETL/ELT pipelines that extract data from source code, APIs, file formats, and documentation and load it into a structured knowledge store.
• Design and maintain schemas and semantic data models capturing entities, relationships, and capabilities.
• Construct and maintain knowledge graphs over heterogeneous product data.
• Develop source and metadata parsers (including source-code/AST parsing) to extract structure automatically.
• Build typed programmatic interfaces and data-access layers over the knowledge layer.
• Implement retrieval and indexing layers (e.g., embeddings, RAG) over product knowledge.
• Work with domain engineers to decompose complex product workflows into discrete, callable operations.
• Assess data sources for coverage, quality, and schema completeness across multiple products.

Skills

Python

REST APIs

ETL/ELT pipelines

Ontology modeling

Knowledge graphs

Systems thinking

Codebase understanding

Education

BS/MS in Computer Science or related field

Tools

LangChain

LangGraph

AutoGen

CrewAI

Job description

At Cadence, we hire and develop leaders and innovators who want to make an impact on the world of technology.

We are looking for an engineer who builds the data and interface layer that makes complex software products programmatically understandable. Many powerful products expose rich but heterogeneous surfaces — source code, scripting APIs, file formats, data structures, and workflow logic. This role builds pipelines that extract and transform those surfaces into structured, queryable knowledge — designing the schemas, constructing the knowledge graphs, and exposing them through clean, typed programmatic interfaces for downstream consumption.

Job Responsibilities

• Build ETL/ELT pipelines that extract data from source code, APIs, file formats, and documentation and load it into a structured knowledge store.
• Design and maintain schemas and semantic data models capturing entities, relationships, and capabilities.
• Construct and maintain knowledge graphs over heterogeneous product data.
• Develop source and metadata parsers (including source-code/AST parsing) to extract structure automatically.
• Build typed programmatic interfaces and data-access layers over the knowledge layer.
• Implement retrieval and indexing layers (e.g., embeddings, RAG) over product knowledge.
• Work with domain engineers to decompose complex product workflows into discrete, callable operations.
• Assess data sources for coverage, quality, and schema completeness across multiple products.

Job Qualifications

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, or similar.
• Strong Python; experience building and consuming REST APIs.
• Experience building data pipelines (ETL/ELT) over structured and unstructured data.
• Familiarity with graph databases and/or semantic/ontology modeling (RDF, OWL, property graphs, or equivalent).
• Experience with at least one agent framework (LangChain, LangGraph, AutoGen, CrewAI, or similar).
• Understanding of how LLMs consume context and call tools (retrieval, RAG, embeddings).
• Exposure to CAE/FEA/CFD or a related physical‑simulation or engineering domain.
• Comfortable working within unfamiliar or undocumented codebases.
• Systems thinker — able to decompose a complex legacy workflow into discrete, callable steps.

Additional Skills/Preferences

Nice to have:

• Vector databases.
• Data‑access and API interface development.
• Parsing structured file formats.
• Surrogate modeling or related numerical methods.

Deliberately Not Required

• Deep or specialist domain expertise beyond working familiarity — domain engineers provide that.
• No PhD or ML research background required.

Additional Information

• Works across multiple products, building structured knowledge and interfaces over their capabilities.
• Collaborates closely with domain engineers who provide subject‑matter expertise.
• Works with data pipelines, graph databases, and product API surfaces.
• Travel is not an expectation for this role. Occasional travel may occur for broad team alignment workshops, but these are infrequent.

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