Platform Architect, Semantics & Ontology

Kinaxis Inc.

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

We are building a next-generation Data Fabric: a multi-tenant, high-performance platform built on Databricks that serves as the substrate for all Kinaxis applications. This is not a traditional data integration or pipeline role – This is a platform architecture role, focused on designing the technical and semantic foundations that allow teams to build reliably on shared data at scale.Our Data Fabric does more than move and store data—it defines the shared meaning of that data across applications, APIs, analytics, AI, and optimization engines. You will play a central role in shaping and owning that foundation. Why This Role Is DifferentMany data architecture roles are centered on internal analytics or reporting. This role exists because: The primary consumers are applications and platforms, not dashboards The platform must support many teams and external users, not a single organization Failure modes are semantic drift, inconsistent behavior, and platform fragility—not missing metrics You will work at the intersection of distributed systems, platform engineering, and semantic architecture, solving problems such as: Designing true multi-tenancy, including isolation, security boundaries, and governance Defining platform-level contracts that allow teams to move independently without breaking shared meaning Ensuring semantic consistency across ingestion, APIs, AI pipelines, and decision engines Operating at a scale where architectural and ontology decisions directly affect customer outcomes

Requirements

10+ years architecting or building complex systems where scalability, correctness, and long-term evolvability matter.
Strong experience with distributed systems (e.g., Spark, Delta Lake) and cloud-native infrastructure.
A platform mindset—you design for reuse, failure modes, and change over time.
Hands-on experience designing and implementing a semantic layer or ontology in a production environment.
Proven ability to model complex domains using canonical entities, relationships, and constraints that drive application behavior—not just analytics.
Experience balancing semantic rigor with developer velocity through practical governance and versioning approaches.
An understanding that semantics are foundational to APIs, AI systems, and decision engines—not only BI tools.
Comfortable operating across strategy and implementation—from architectural direction to hands-on problem solving.
Strong technical judgment and ownership mindset.
Experience leveraging AI-enabled tooling to accelerate development, with the ability to critically review outputs for correctness, architectural fit, and risk.

Responsibilities

Architect the Data Fabric Platform
Lead the evolution of a Databricks-centric Data Fabric using Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Delta Sharing, and custom orchestration.
Design core platform primitives such as identity, tenancy models, access controls, compute quotas, and automation required to operate at scale.
Define and Own the Semantic Foundation
Define and maintain the canonical business ontology that underpins Kinaxis products, decoupling business meaning from physical storage and implementation.
Design a governed semantic layer that ensures consistent interpretation of core supply-chain concepts (e.g., demand, supply, time, capacity, constraints) across products and services.
Establish semantic contracts and versioning strategies that support evolution without fragmentation or breaking consumers.
Make Semantics Operable
Design how semantic models and mappings are authored, versioned, governed, and served in a multi-tenant environment.
Ensure semantic definitions integrate cleanly with compute, APIs, and AI/ML workflows so meaning is preserved through transformation and inference.
Build frameworks and abstractions that allow product teams to benefit from shared semantics without requiring deep ontology expertise.
Enable Developers and Teams
Translate infrastructure complexity (Kubernetes, Azure/GCP, Databricks internals) into a coherent and reliable developer experience.
Provide clear boundaries, guarantees, and abstractions that allow teams to move faster and safer on the platform.