Semantic Ontology Engineer for Knowledge Graphs

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; United States; On-site; USD 100,000 - 115,000; Full time

Job summary

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the United States is seeking an Ontology Engineer to shape our knowledge structure across K-12 education and HMH products. The role centers on developing and maintaining ontologies, linking data from multiple sources, and enabling richer data discovery for educators and researchers.

You will collaborate with data engineering, content development, and operations teams, writing SPARQL queries, using RDF/OWL/SHACL, and documenting complex knowledge graphs to support

Qualifications

• Advanced degree or equivalent experience in a relevant field.
• Proficiency with ontology modeling languages (RDF, OWL, SHACL).
• Experience with graph databases and semantic data integration.
• Ability to write effective SPARQL queries and manage data vocabularies.

Responsibilities

• Develops and maintains ontologies for knowledge graphs in K-12 education and HMH products.
• Supports integration between ontology systems and data repositories; builds SPARQL queries against RDF/OWL/SHACL.
• Ensures accuracy and consistency of ontological structures through quality checks.
• Collaborates with cross-functional teams to align knowledge representation with enterprise systems.
• Creates documentation for ontologies and knowledge graphs for technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Coordinates with Data Engineering, Operations, and Content Development teams.

Skills

Ontology engineering

Programming languages

Data integration

Problem solving

SPARQL

SQL

Education

Advanced degree in philosophy, CS, information science, or quantitative field

Tools

Stardog

Protégé

Semaphore

PoolParty

RDF/OWL/SHACL

Job description

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the United States is seeking an Ontology Engineer to shape our knowledge structure across K-12 education and HMH products. The role centers on developing and maintaining ontologies, linking data from multiple sources, and enabling richer data discovery for educators and researchers.

You will collaborate with data engineering, content development, and operations teams, writing SPARQL queries, using RDF/OWL/SHACL, and documenting complex knowledge graphs to support