Ontology Systems Engineer

Basic Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Systems Engineering, or a related Science, Engineering or Mathematics field, plus a minimum of 8 years of relevant experience; or Master's degree, plus a minimum of 6 years of relevant experience.CLEARANCE REQUIREMENTS:: Department of Defense Secret security clearance is required at time of hire. Applicants selected will be subject to a U.S. Government security investigation and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information. Due to the nature of work performed within our facilities, U.S. citizenship is required.

Responsibilities for this Position

What You'll Own

• Enterprise knowledge architecture. Define and maintain the overarching structure that connects domain-specific ontologies across pods. Manage the relationships between business vocabularies, taxonomies, and data models at the enterprise level.
• Cross-domain consistency. Ensure that business concepts defined in one pod are compatible with concepts in other pods. Resolve naming conflicts, semantic overlaps, and definitional inconsistencies before they become integration problems.
• Metadata and tagging standards. Establish enterprise-wide standards for metadata, tagging, classification, and search structures. Build the knowledge infrastructure that makes enterprise data findable, reusable, and machine-readable.
• Business glossary governance. Own the enterprise business glossary — the authoritative source for what terms mean across the organization. Work with data owners and business stewards to maintain accuracy.
• Knowledge repository architecture. Design the structures that store and expose enterprise knowledge — knowledge graphs, semantic catalogs, taxonomy services. Ensure AI agents can discover and traverse enterprise knowledge programmatically.

What You Won't Own

• Pod-specific data modeling — that's the Data/Ontology Engineer's role within each pod
• AI application development or engineering
• Enterprise system administration or data engineering pipelines

What Makes This Role Different

• You are building the connective tissue between multiple AI modernization efforts. Without your work, each pod builds an island. With it, they build a continent.
• Your knowledge architecture directly enables cross-domain AI reasoning. An agent that can connect HR data to manufacturing data to supply chain data — that capability starts with your architecture.
• This role requires both systems thinking and business fluency. You need to understand how manufacturing processes, HR workflows, and CRM systems relate at a business level, not just a data level.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Systems Engineering, Computer Science, Information Science, or a related field, plus 8 years of experience; or Master’s degree plus 6 years of experience
• Experience designing enterprise-level data architectures, knowledge models, or information taxonomies that span multiple business domains
• Strong understanding of ontology and semantic modeling concepts — you can work fluently with knowledge graph engineers and data modelers
• Systems engineering mindset — you think about interfaces, dependencies, integration points, and emergent behavior across interconnected systems
• Experience working across organizational boundaries — you have built consensus on shared standards across teams that had their own ways of doing things
• Strong communication skills — you can explain data relationships to business stakeholders and architectural constraints to engineers
• U.S. citizenship required. Department of Defense Secret security clearance is required at time of hire.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with knowledge graphs, semantic web technologies, or enterprise taxonomy management
• Experience with enterprise data platforms (Palantir Foundry, Snowflake, or similar) and their ontology or semantic layer capabilities
• Background in manufacturing, defense, or complex enterprise environments with multiple interacting business systems
• Experience defining metadata standards, business glossaries, or data governance frameworks at an enterprise level
• Familiarity with how AI/LLM systems consume structured knowledge — RAG architectures, knowledge-grounded reasoning, semantic search

What Sets You Apart

• You see the enterprise as a system of systems. You instinctively look for the connections between domains, not just the domains themselves.
• You have resolved vocabulary conflicts across organizations and made the shared definition stick.
• You can hold the big picture and the details at the same time — enterprise architecture in the morning, specific field mappings in the afternoon.
• You build for reuse. Your architectures are designed to accommodate domains that don't exist yet, not just the ones in front of you today.
• You are known as the person who can explain how everything connects. People come to you when they need to understand the whole.

Details

• Remote — 100% telework
• 9/80 schedule
• Defense industry experience is not required

Salary Note

This estimate represents the typical salary range for this position based on experience and other factors (geographic location, etc.). Actual pay may vary. This job posting will remain open until the position is filled.

Combined Salary Range

USD $157,487.00 - USD $174,713.00 /Yr.

Company Overview

General Dynamics Mission Systems (GDMS) engineers a diverse portfolio of high technology solutions, products and services that enable customers to successfully execute missions across all domains of operation. With a global team of 12,000+ top professionals, we partner with the best in industry to expand the bounds of innovation in the defense and scientific arenas. Given the nature of our work and who we are, we value trust, honesty, alignment and transparency. We offer highly competitive benefits and pride ourselves in being a great place to work with a shared sense of purpose. You will also enjoy a flexible work environment where contributions are recognized and rewarded. If who we are and what we do resonates with you, we invite you to join our high-performance team!

Equal Opportunity Employer / Individuals with Disabilities / Protected Veterans