Ontology Architect & Governance Lead

Nscale; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Nscale is searching for an Ontology Manager to own and evolve the organisational ontology at the heart of Foundry implementation. This high‑visibility role reports to the Nirvana Programme Lead and partners with Use Case Leads, Data Source Developers, the Data Lead, and Data Governance teams.

As the SME on data architecture, you will hold the long‑term strategic view of the ontology, prioritise change requests, and shape how real‑world operations are modeled and made available across the

Qualifications

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

Responsibilities

• Own the development of the ontology as the single consumption point for workflow projects.
• Manage the ontology backlog, prioritising change requests to other teams.
• Evaluate new ontology change requests and assess impact on roadmap.
• Collaborate with Use Case Leads and Data Source Developers on data sources.
• Influence new use-case architecture to align with ontology and programme strategy.
• Maintain the ontology and develop understanding of data sources for each use case.
• Work with Data Governance to ensure governance of ontology access.
• Develop scalable governance checks in ontology development and maintenance.
• Align ontology development with the programme-wide roadmap with Ontology Lead.

Skills

Ontology design

Data architecture

Data modelling

Data pipelines

Stakeholder communication

Cross-functional leadership

Tools

Palantir Foundry

Knowledge graphs

Job description

Nscale is searching for an Ontology Manager to own and evolve the organisational ontology at the heart of Foundry implementation. This high‑visibility role reports to the Nirvana Programme Lead and partners with Use Case Leads, Data Source Developers, the Data Lead, and Data Governance teams.

As the SME on data architecture, you will hold the long‑term strategic view of the ontology, prioritise change requests, and shape how real‑world operations are modeled and made available across the