Content Architect

POLITICO • Arlington, VA

2d

About The Position

POLITICO is seeking a Content Architect to manage our system for classifying and distributing content across our full product suite and global coverage footprint. The role is deeply connected to our Newsroom and our Technology teams but sits on our Product team. POLITICO’s Content Architect will manage our taxonomy and content classification system across the company. The system is responsible for applying topics and other designations so that information reaches its intended audience based on their topic preferences, geographic region, subscription(s), and entitlements. Ultimately, the Content Architect will ensure we stay current with technology trends and capabilities so that we can apply them to our workflows and products. Previous experience maintaining domain ontologies or taxonomies for real-world business or premium consumer applications.” POLITICO covers centers of power with immediacy, intimacy, and intelligence — and we win when we are indispensable to the most informed and influential readers in every arena we serve. POLITICO started by penetrating one “village” of influence — Washington and grew a collection of villages across nine time zones: Brussels, Berlin, London, Sacramento, Albany, and many more. That global footprint puts POLITICO in a different category than competitors and imitators. Connecting that journalism globally requires a sophisticated approach to our taxonomy and content architecture, to ensure that we’re organizing our journalism and data in a structured and strategic way. This structure ensures the right content gets to the right people in the right formats. Who You Are: You are a visionary thinker with deep experience in taxonomy or ontology systems, energized by solving complex content‑classification challenges at scale. You thrive at the intersection of product, newsroom, and technology, communicating seamlessly across teams to drive alignment and innovation. You stay current with emerging technologies — especially AI — and know how to apply them to build structured, strategic systems that deliver the right content to the right audiences.

Requirements

• Minimum of 5 years of work experience in taxonomy and/or ontology engineering roles; preferred experience in information services, media, and/or technology companies
• Master's degree in library sciences preferred.
• Familiarity with LLM-based enrichment.
• Experience designing or maintaining domain ontologies or taxonomies for real-world business applications.
• Familiarity with product management processes (assessing user needs, soliciting feedback, scoping and designing solutions, prioritizing enhancements, managing roadmap, assessing performance and quality, managing stakeholders).
• Excellent communication skills, including ability to speak fluently across product, newsroom, and engineering teams; ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences.

Responsibilities

• Be the product owner of POLITICO’s Taxonomy
• Lead POLITICO’s content architecture and taxonomy as an internal product for our newsroom, product, commercial, and technology teams. As a product owner, the Content Architect will create a content architecture and taxonomy roadmap, manage system improvements, oversee performance, and ensure ongoing accuracy.
• Build a governance system
• Design a human-in-the-loop mechanism to translate editorial judgment and corrections process into improvements to the taxonomy system.
• Monitor accuracy, performance, and manage updates to the taxonomy system to ensure correct classification of content, including making adjustments to ensure feedback from internal stakeholders and customers are incorporated.
• Build a long-term solution that can include improvements in automated classification, rules, and models over time.
• Support business growth
• Ensure POLITICO’s content architecture supports its global coverage footprint including multi-language, full product suite, and full audience. This includes extending classification systems to support new coverage areas, new geographies, new product entitlements, and new audience segments.
• Build taxonomy systems that include ontology
• Establish semantic relationships and ontologies, including defining, evolving, and validating how entities and concepts relate across coverage areas
• Support new AI-enabled distribution and consumption experiences
• Design systems that optimize search, discovery, and consumption of POLITICO content via agentic applications, MCPs, and other AI applications. Ensure content architecture aligns with relevant industry standards.
• Lead prototyping and pilot initiatives
• Drive innovation by exploring new classification approaches, graph relationships, and AI-assisted workflows before scaling them into production systems. Ensure the structure and architecture is set up for future systems, reducing the need for lock-in and re-work.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level