Ontologist, Product Knowledge

Amazon • Seattle, WA

2d

About The Position

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 an 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.

Requirements

• Experience in data retrieval techniques
• Experience in written and spoken English and an ability to compose grammatically correct, concise and accurate written responses
• Degree in Library Science, Information Systems, Linguistics or equivalent professional experience
• 3+ years of relevant work experience working in ontology and/or taxonomy roles
• Ability to quickly understand complex processes and communicate them in simple language
• Ability to communicate knowledge-based requirements and needs to engineering and retail teams
• Familiarity with 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-solving, ability to work in fast-changing environment and manage ambiguity
• Proven track record of strong communication and interpersonal skills

Nice To Haves

• Experience building ontologies in the e-commerce and semantic search spaces
• Experience working with schema-level constructs like higher-order classes, punning or property inheritance
• Knowledge of software engineering life cycle
• Master’s degree in Library Science, Information Systems, Linguistics or other relevant fields
• Proficiency in SQL, SPARQL
• Exposure to data science and/or machine learning, including graph embeddings

Responsibilities

• Develop logical, semantically rich, and extensible data models for Amazon's expansive product catalog
• Ensure our ontologies provide comprehensive sub-domain coverage that are available for machine ingestion and inference
• Research worldwide understanding of Amazon products to develop scalable data models that solve customer problems and enhance product discoverability
• Create new schema using Generative Artificial Intelligence (generative AI) models
• Expand existing data retrieval techniques by utilizing our extensive product catalog and query languages
• Analyze website metrics and product discovery behaviors to make data-driven decisions on optimizing our knowledge graph data models globally
• Contribute to the development of new tool features and processes for the Ontology team
• Drive alignment to ontology modeling and technology best practices and principles within our organization and across Amazon
• Coordinate cross-functional projects with a broad range of technical and non-technical teams

Benefits

• 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
• parental leave

What This Job Offers

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