Senior Ontology & Semantics AI Scientist

SAP SE; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 149,000 - 306,000; Full time

Job summary

SAP SE in Palo Alto seeks a Senior Data & Applied Scientist to build SAP's semantic and contextual AI foundation. You will ground AI in SAP’s business ontology and enterprise data to enable accurate, scalable AI agents across SAP’s platforms.

You’ll design ontologies, semantic models, and AI capabilities spanning data from SAP, external providers, and MES/IoT systems, with production-grade ML and cloud-scale workflows.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in knowledge engineering, semantic data systems, applied AI, or data science in industry, research labs, or advanced academic environments.
• Master's or PhD in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, Engineering, or related quantitative field
• Hands-on experience designing enterprise ontologies and semantic models; proficiency in graph query languages (SPARQL, Cypher, or GQL); understanding RDF stores vs. property graphs.
• Hands-on experience with modern GenAI systems, RAG, embeddings, vector databases, and enterprise knowledge grounding.
• Strong Python and SQL skills with production-grade development practices; experience with ML libraries such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or scikit-learn.

Responsibilities

• Build and scale the semantic and contextual foundation of SAP's AI to ground enterprise data in meaningful knowledge graphs.
• Design enterprise ontologies and semantic models that harmonize data from SAP and external providers into unified semantic layers.
• Develop AI capabilities including RAG pipelines, embeddings, vector databases, and enterprise knowledge grounding for production reliability.
• Collaborate across product, engineering, and business teams to translate challenges into deployable AI solutions from concept to deployment.
• Apply ML, deep learning, and statistical modeling to real-world enterprise datasets to evaluate AI solutions.

Skills

Knowledge engineering

Semantic data systems

Applied AI

Data science

Python

SQL

Machine learning

Communication

Education

Master's or PhD in Computer Science or related quantitative field

Tools

SPARQL

Cypher

GQL

Databricks

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Job description

SAP SE in Palo Alto seeks a Senior Data & Applied Scientist to build SAP's semantic and contextual AI foundation. You will ground AI in SAP’s business ontology and enterprise data to enable accurate, scalable AI agents across SAP’s platforms.

You’ll design ontologies, semantic models, and AI capabilities spanning data from SAP, external providers, and MES/IoT systems, with production-grade ML and cloud-scale workflows.