Knowledge Engineer / Taxonomy & Content Operations Lead

Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP; Boston (MA); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP is seeking a Knowledge Engineer / Taxonomy & Content Operations Lead to partner with experts across practice groups to capture and structure institutional expertise. You will translate complex judgment into practical guidance, taxonomies, and AI-ready content for enterprise workflows, RAG pipelines, and GenAI tools.

You will design and govern metadata standards, document business rules, and build reusable knowledge assets to support search, automation, and

Qualifications

• 3+ years in knowledge engineering, knowledge management, legal operations, or related fields.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience.
• Direct experience with documenting complex expertise, decision logic, escalation pathways, and business rules.
• Hands-on taxonomy/metadata management, enterprise search, and structured content; familiarity with DMS platforms.
• Understanding GenAI retrieval (RAG, vector/search) and AI-ready content needs.
• Strong facilitation, interviewing, documentation, analytical, problem-solving, and communications skills.
• Hybrid remote/in-office work with in-office Tue–Thu; remote Mon/Fri possible; onsite as needed.
• Preferred: experience in legal and consulting content; exposure to knowledge graphs or metadata automation.
• Preferred: familiarity with confidentiality and ethical-wall requirements in regulated environments.

Responsibilities

• Partner with subject-matter experts to capture decision-making frameworks, risk tolerances, and operating procedures.
• Translate domain expertise into structured, repeatable guidance for processes and workflows.
• Develop and maintain decision trees, knowledge models, taxonomies, and playbooks.
• Design and govern firm-wide taxonomies, vocabularies, and metadata standards across content platforms.
• Analyze activities to identify standardization, simplification, and scalability opportunities.
• Design future-state workflows integrating attorneys, consultants, and technology.
• Structure precedents and documents into retrieval-ready formats for enterprise search and AI tools.
• Translate policies and playbooks into requirements for automation and AI-enabled solutions.
• Collaborate with AI Enablement, IT, and vendors to ensure quality knowledge in workflows and AI tools.
• Establish quality standards and testing methodologies for outputs.
• Own the data model and content quality behind the unified experience management system.
• Report findability, content-health, and reuse metrics.

Skills

Knowledge engineering

Knowledge management

Information architecture

Content operations

Taxonomies

Metadata management

Enterprise search

GenAI / RAG

Facilitation

Documentation

Education

Bachelor's degree in information science or related field

Tools

DMS platforms

Taxonomy tooling

Knowledge graphs

Job description

With eleven offices across the United States, 500+ professionals and 350+ business professionals, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP (www.manatt.com), is a multidisciplinary, integrated national professional services firm known for quality and an extraordinary commitment to clients. The Firm’s groundbreaking approach—bringing together legal services, advocacy and business strategy—differentiates Manatt from its competitors and positions the Firm to provide a distinct and compelling value proposition.

The Opportunity

We are seeking a Knowledge Engineer / Taxonomy & Content Operations Lead to partner with subject-matter experts across the legal practice and Manatt Health consulting to capture, structure, and preserve institutional expertise. This role translates complex professional judgment into practical guidance, taxonomies, playbooks, decision trees, metadata standards, and AI-ready content for consistent use across workflows, enterprise search, experience management, automation, and approved GenAI tools. The role also identifies opportunities for standardization, simplification, scalability, and operational improvement while helping ensure institutional knowledge is accurate, trusted, findable, appropriately governed, and used in accordance with ethical-wall, client-restriction, and confidentiality obligations.

Key Responsibilities

• Partner with subject-matter experts across practice groups and Manatt Health sectors to capture and document decision-making frameworks, risk tolerances, operating procedures, escalation criteria, and business rules.
• Identify and translate complex domain expertise into structured, repeatable guidance that can be applied consistently across processes, workflows, and service-delivery activities.
• Develop and maintain decision trees, knowledge models, issue taxonomies, precedent repositories, playbooks, guidance libraries, and other reusable knowledge assets.
• Design and govern firm-wide taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, and metadata standards across legal and Manatt Health content, ensuring consistency across the DMS, enterprise search, and experience management platforms.
• Analyze practice and service-delivery activities to identify opportunities for standardization, simplification, scalability, and operational improvement.
• Design future-state workflows that integrate attorneys, consultants, operational teams, and technology solutions, and document the supporting operating procedures and process maps.
• Structure precedents, model documents, clause libraries, and consulting deliverables into clean, tagged, retrieval-ready formats that support enterprise search, RAG pipelines, and approved GenAI tools.
• Translate policies, procedures, playbooks, and decision frameworks into structured business requirements suitable for automation and AI-enabled solutions.
• Partner with the AI Enablement Manager, IT, and vendors to ensure institutional expertise is accurately represented within workflows, knowledge systems, and AI-enabled tools, and to keep AI workflows grounded in high-quality knowledge content.
• Establish quality standards and testing methodologies to evaluate the consistency, reliability, and appropriateness of technology-generated outputs.
• Own the data model and content quality behind the unified experience management system covering both matters and Manatt Health engagements.
• Report findability, content-health, and reuse metrics into the quarterly KM value dashboard.

Qualifications

• (Required) 3+ years of experience in knowledge engineering, knowledge management, legal operations, business process management, information architecture, or content operations.
• (Required) Bachelor’s degree in information science, library/knowledge science, data/computer science, legal operations, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• (Required) Experience working directly with subject-matter experts to document and operationalize complex expertise, and to decompose complex work into decision logic, escalation pathways, business rules, and repeatable operating models.
• (Required) Hands‑on experience with taxonomy/metadata management, enterprise search, and structured content; familiarity with DMS platforms.
• (Required) Working understanding of how GenAI retrieval, including RAG and vector/enterprise search, consumes structured knowledge and what AI-ready content requires.
• (Required) Strong facilitation, interviewing, documentation, analytical, problem‑solving, written, and verbal communication skills, with the ability to bridge business, operational, and technology teams.
• (Required) Exceptional organizational skills and strong attention to detail.
• (Required) Demonstrated reliability and the ability to work both independently and collaboratively within a hybrid remote and in‑office team environment. The Firm operates on a hybrid work schedule requiring in‑office presence Tuesday through Thursday, with optional remote work permitted on Mondays and Fridays. All employees must remain available for onsite work up to five days per week as business needs dictate. This schedule is subject to change; flexibility is required.
• (Preferred) Experience supporting both legal and consulting/advisory content, or in a dual‑discipline firm.
• (Preferred) Exposure to knowledge graphs, ontology tooling, or metadata automation.
• (Preferred) Experience translating policies and playbooks into requirements for automation or AI-enabled solutions.
• (Preferred) Familiarity with confidentiality and ethical‑wall requirements in a regulated professional environment.

The base annual pay range for this role is between $130,000 - $160,000. The base pay to be offered will vary and depend on skills and qualifications, experience, location and will also take into account internal equity. A full range of medical, financial and/or other benefits dependent on the position will also be offered.

EEO/AA EMPLOYER/Veterans/Disabled

Manatt is an equal opportunity employer, dedicated to a policy of non‑discrimination in employment on any basis including race, color, physical or mental disability, religion, creed, national origin, citizenship status, ancestry, sex or gender (including gender identity, gender expression, status as a transgender or transsexual individual, pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), age (over 40), genetic information, past, current, or prospective service in the uniformed services, sexual orientation, political activity or affiliation, genetic or and any other protected classes or characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, or local law. Consistent with the American Disabilities Act, applicants may request accommodations needed to participate in the application process.

This employer will provide the Social Security Administration (SSA) and, if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with information from each newemployee’s Form I-9 to confirm workauthorization.

IMPORTANT: If the Government cannotconfirm that you are authorized to work,this employer is required to provide youwritten instructions and an opportunityto contact SSA and/or DHS before taking adverse action against you, includingterminating your employment.

Employers may not use E-Verify to pre‑screen job applicants or to re‑verify current employees and may not limit or influence the choice of documents presented for use on the Form I-9.In order to determine whether Form I-9 documentation is valid, this employer uses E-Verify’s photo screening tool to matchthe photograph appearing on somepermanent resident and employmentauthorization cards with the official U.S.Citizenship and Immigration Services’(USCIS) photograph.If you believe that your employer hasviolated its responsibilities under thisprogram or has discriminated againstyou during the verification processbased upon your national origin orcitizenship status, please call the Office of Special Counsel at1-800-255-7688 (TDD: 1-800-237-2515).