Director, Clinical Ontology

FyrFly Venture Partners; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 206,000 - 257,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in health technology is seeking a Director of Clinical Ontology to shape future products by leading ontology development and governance. This remote role requires extensive experience in biomedical ontologies, strong leadership skills, and collaboration across technical teams. Candidates will enjoy competitive compensation, health benefits, and a culture that prioritizes well-being and inclusivity.

Benefits

Competitive salary and equity packages

Health, dental, vision insurance

20 days of paid time off plus 13 paid holidays

Paid sick leave and parental leave

Employee discounts for friends & family

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in ontology development, semantic data modeling, or health informatics.
• Experience in consumer health, wearables, digital biomarkers, or remote patient monitoring preferred.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development, and governance of Oura's clinical ontology.
• Collaborate with Science, Data Science, Engineering, and Product teams.
• Define and manage controlled vocabularies and standard terminologies.

Skills

Deep knowledge of biomedical ontologies

Semantic data modeling

Leadership

Collaboration

Strong communication skills

Education

Master's or PhD in biomedical informatics

Tools

HL7 FHIR

SNOMED CT

UMLS

Job description

At Oura, our mission is to empower every person to own their inner potential. With our award-winning Oura Ring and app, we help over 2.5 million people turn insights about sleep, activity, and readiness into healthier, more balanced lives. We believe that starts from within — by creating a culture where our team feels supported, included, and inspired to do their best work. Our values guide how we show up for each other and our community every day.

We are looking for a Director, Clinical Ontology to play a key role in shaping Oura’s future products and services.

What you will do:

• Lead the design, development, and governance of Oura’s clinical ontology, encompassing physiological, behavioral, and contextual data domains.
• Collaborate across Science, Data Science, Engineering, and Product teams to ensure the ontology supports scalable data architecture, AI/ML models, and clinical-grade analytics.
• Define and manage controlled vocabularies, taxonomies, and standard terminologies (e.g., SNOMED CT, LOINC, ICD) to support cross-platform data integration.
• Serve as the primary authority on semantic data modeling, contributing to data dictionaries, metadata standards, and ontological consistency across Oura’s product suite.
• Define and manage ontology mappings between Oura and third-party health ecosystems, including EHRs, public health datasets, and research partners.
• Lead and grow a small team of ontology specialists and data architects.
• Stay current with emerging standards and technologies in health informatics and semantic web.
• Drive adoption of best practices in ontology lifecycle management, version control, and change governance.

This is a remote US role.

We would love to have you on our team if you have:

• Deep knowledge of biomedical ontologies and standards (e.g., HL7 FHIR, SNOMED CT, UMLS, etc.).
• Master’s or PhD in biomedical informatics, computer science, information science, or a related field.
• 7+ years of experience in ontology development, semantic data modeling, or health informatics.
• Experience engineering and supporting ontology solutions from the ground up, including close collaboration with full stack engineering teams and familiarity with engineering processes such as Agile, etc.
• Experience in consumer health, wearables, digital biomarkers, or remote patient monitoring strongly preferred.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional initiatives and translate complex health concepts into structured data frameworks, including working with clinical domain experts to inform ontology data curation.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to influence technical and non-technical stakeholders.

At Oura, we care about you and your well-being. What we offer:

• Competitive salary and equity packages
• Health, dental, vision insurance, and mental health resources
• An Oura Ring of your own plus employee discounts for friends & family
• 20 days of paid time off plus 13 paid holidays plus 8 days of flexible wellness time off
• Paid sick leave and parental leave

Oura takes a market-based approach to pay, which may vary depending on your location. US locations are categorized into tiers based on a cost of labor index for that geographic area. While most offers will be closer to the starting range, successful candidates’ pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, internal peer equity, and market conditions. These ranges may be modified in the future.

• Region 1: $206,000 - $257,000
• Region 2: $190,000 - $237,000
• Region 3: $178,000 - $223,000

A recruiter can determine your zones/tiers based on your US location.

We are not considering candidates residing in the following states: Alaska (AK), Arkansas (AR), Delaware (DE), Iowa (IA), Mississippi (MS), Missouri (MO), Nebraska (NE), Rhode Island (RI), South Dakota (SD), Vermont (VT), West Virginia (WV), and Wisconsin (WI).

Oura is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Individuals seeking employment at Oura are considered without regard to age, ancestry, color, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, mental or physical disability, national origin, protected family care or medical leave status, race, religion (including beliefs and practices or the absence thereof), sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. We will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics.

We will work to ensure individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment.

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