The vision of the Product Knowledge Ontology Team is to provide a standardized, semantically rich, easily discoverable, extensible, and universally applicable body of product knowledge that can be consistently utilized across customer shopping experiences, selling partner listing experiences and internal enrichment of product data. We aim to make product knowledge compelling, easy to use, and feature rich. Our work to build comprehensive product knowledge allows us to semantically understand a customer’s intent – whether that is a shopping mission or a seller offering products. We strive to make these experiences more intuitive for all customers.
As a Senior Ontologist, you work on a global team of knowledge builders to deliver world-class, intuitive, and comprehensive taxonomy and ontology models to optimize product discovery for Amazon web and mobile experiences. You collaborate with business partners, data science and engineering teams to deliver knowledge-based solutions to enable product discoverability for customers. In this role, you will directly impact the customer experience as well as the company’s product knowledge foundation.
Key job responsibilities
- Develop logical, semantically rich, and extensible data models for Amazon's extensive product catalog
- Ensure our ontologies provide comprehensive domain coverage that are available for both human and machine ingestion and inference
- Create new schema using Generative Artificial Intelligence (generative AI) models
- Analyze website metrics and product discovery behaviors to make data-driven decisions on optimizing our knowledge graph data models globally
- Expand and refine the expansion of data retrieval techniques to utilize our extensive knowledge graph
- Contribute to team goal setting and future state vision
- Drive and coordinate cross-functional projects with a broad range of merchandisers, engineers, designers, and other groups that may include architecting new data solutions
- Develop team operational excellence programs, data quality initiatives and process simplifications
- Evangelize ontology and semantic technologies within and across teams at Amazon
- Develop and refine data governance and processes used by global Ontologists
- Mentor and influence peers
About the team Our team has a global presence: we celebrate diverse cultures and backgrounds within our team and our customer base. We are committed to furthering our culture of inclusion, offering continuous access to internal affinity groups as well as highlighting diversity programs. We care about your career growth, from your initial company introduction and training sessions, to continuous support throughout your entire career at Amazon. We recognize each team member as an individual, and we will build on your skills to help you grow. We have a broad mix of experience levels and tenures, and we are building an environment that celebrates knowledge sharing.
Basic Qualifications
- Experience in data retrieval techniques
- Degree in Library Science, Information Systems, Linguistics or equivalent professional experience
- 5+ years of relevant work experience working in ontology and/or taxonomy roles
- Ability to quickly understand complex processes and communicate them in simple language
- Experience creating and communicating technical requirements to engineering teams
- Ability to communicate to senior leadership (Director and VP levels)
- Experience with generative AI (e.g. creating prompts)
- Knowledge of Semantic Web technologies (RDF/s, OWL), query languages (SPARQL) and validation/reasoning standards (SHACL, SPIN)
- Knowledge of open-source and commercial ontology engineering editors (e.g. Protege, TopQuadrant products, PoolParty)
- Detail-oriented problem solver who is able to work in fast-changing environment and manage ambiguity
Preferred Qualifications
- Knowledge of software development lifecycle, including design, development, test, build, deployment processes and timelines
- Exposure to data science and/or machine learning, including graph embeddings
- Master’s degree in Library Science, Information Systems, Linguistics or other relevant fields
- Experience building ontologies in the e-commerce and semantic search spaces
- Experience working with schema-level constructs (e.g. higher-level classes, punning, property inheritance)
- Familiarity with ontology manipulation programming libraries
Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.
Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit https://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.
The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits at https://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.
USA, WA, Seattle - 102,700.00 - 179,700.00 USD annually