Principal Business Lead, Enterprise Ontology and Semantic Layer

Madison-Davis; Irving (TX); On-site; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Madison-Davis, LLC seeks a senior enterprise data leader to establish and own a governed semantic and ontology capability for a modern enterprise data platform. You will define canonical entities, metrics, and relationships across sources, while leading semantic engineering, governance, and stakeholder collaboration to enable reliable reporting and AI-driven applications.

The role requires hands-on architecture, ontology expertise, and senior leadership to drive adoption, roadmap, and measurable

Qualifications

• Significant enterprise data architecture or related experience with production implementation depth.
• 5+ years of enterprise semantic, ontology, or knowledge graph ownership.
• At least one semantic or ontology capability delivered into production and adopted by business.
• Experience with enterprise semantic tooling, esp. Microsoft Fabric.
• Strong RDF, RDFS, OWL, SPARQL, SHACL, SKOS, and graph tech knowledge.
• Dimensional, canonical, and enterprise data modeling expertise.

Responsibilities

• Design canonical business entities, taxonomies, ontologies, and semantic models.
• Define certified enterprise metrics and maintain consistency across reporting.
• Lead semantic model implementation, source-to-semantic mapping, and knowledge graph development.
• Establish stewardship, lineage, security integration, version control, and semantic validation.
• Support enterprise BI, natural-language querying, RAG, and agentic AI through governed interfaces.
• Lead resources and coordinate across data engineering, governance, security, and business teams.
• Establish standards for model accuracy, testing, and production change management.
• Own the semantic roadmap, adoption strategy, and measurable business outcomes.

Skills

Enterprise data architecture

Semantic/ontology ownership

SQL

Python

Governance

Stakeholder engagement

CI/CD

Leadership

Knowledge graph

RDF/OWL

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience

Tools

Microsoft Fabric

Collibra

Alation

Palantir Foundry

Job description

A diversified investment and operating organization is seeking a senior enterprise data leader to establish and own a governed semantic and ontology capability supporting a modern enterprise data platform. This role will ensure consistent definitions of business entities, metrics, and relationships across multiple data sources. The successful candidate will combine hands-on architecture, ontology and semantic engineering, governance, stakeholder leadership, and technical team oversight to enable reliable reporting and AI-driven business applications.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Design canonical business entities, enterprise taxonomies, ontologies, and semantic models.
• Define certified enterprise metrics and maintain consistency across reporting consumers.
• Lead semantic model implementation, source-to-semantic mapping, and knowledge graph development.
• Establish stewardship, lineage, security integration, version control, and semantic validation.
• Support enterprise BI, natural-language querying, RAG, and agentic AI through governed interfaces.
• Lead technical resources and coordinate across data engineering, governance, security, and business teams.
• Establish standards for model accuracy, testing, and production change management.
• Own the semantic roadmap, adoption strategy, and measurable business outcomes.

ROLE REQUIREMENTS

• Significant enterprise data architecture or related experience, with strong production implementation depth.
• 5+ years of enterprise semantic, ontology, or knowledge graph ownership.
• At least one semantic or ontology capability successfully delivered into production and business adoption.
• Enterprise semantic or metric tooling experience, with Microsoft Fabric particularly important.
• Strong RDF, RDFS, OWL, SPARQL, SHACL, SKOS, and graph technology knowledge.
• Dimensional, canonical, and enterprise data modeling expertise.
• AI grounding, natural-language query, RAG, and agent-related data integration experience.
• SQL, Python, version control, CI/CD, and automated validation.
• Technical team leadership, governance, and senior stakeholder engagement.
• Bachelor's degree in a related discipline or equivalent practical experience.

PREFERRED EXPERIENCE

• Microsoft Purview and Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations.
• Enterprise catalogs such as Collibra or Alation.
• Industry ontologies and Palantir Foundry modeling.
• Vector database or ontology-informed retrieval experience.
• Relevant advanced degree or certification.