Ontologist, Customer Engagement Technology

As an Ontologist, you will architect taxonomy and ontology models while collaborating with global teams to evolve Amazon's customer service. You will leverage expertise in knowledge representation, semantic search, and data modeling to deliver knowledge-based solutions that drive business impact. Your expertise will be instrumental in shaping data-driven strategies and addressing complex data challenges. Through partnerships with science and engineering teams, you will advance ontology best practices, strengthen Amazon's customer service foundation, and enhance customer interactions.

The ideal candidate demonstrates a deep commitment to customer value through applied science and thrives in a fast-paced environment. Success in this role requires combining deep business knowledge with hands-on technical skills to solve complex challenges and drive continuous improvement.


Key job responsibilities
- Design and develop robust, semantically rich, and extensible data models for Amazon Customer Service, enabling seamless machine ingestion and inference.
- Create novel schema using innovative generative AI models.
- Enhance data retrieval capabilities by leveraging our vast product catalog and advanced query languages.
- Analyze website metrics and behaviors to inform data-driven decisions on optimizing knowledge graph data models globally.
- Drive adoption of ontology modeling and technology best practices across Amazon.
- Ensure comprehensive sub-domain coverage and ontology alignment across Amazon.

A day in the life
A typical day for an Ontologist involves balancing domain expertise with hands-on ontology development. You'll tackle complex knowledge modeling initiatives, ensuring alignment with business objectives and customer needs, and translate domain requirements into practical ontology solutions. Working with cross-functional teams, you'll design and enhance ontologies, focusing on semantic accuracy, scalability, and interoperability. You'll mentor team members, fostering skill growth and encouraging innovative knowledge modeling approaches. Your day will involve ensuring data consistency, ontology quality, and generating actionable insights from vast amounts of data, driving business impact and transforming Amazon's customer service experience.

You will work closely with senior leaders across cross-functional stakeholder teams within Amazon to drive collaboration, influence stakeholders to prioritize projects, and ensure alignment with business plans and shared objectives.

If you are not sure that every qualification on the list above describes you exactly, we'd still love to hear from you! At Amazon, we value people with unique backgrounds, experiences, and skillsets. If you’re passionate about this role and want to make an impact on a global scale, please apply!

Benefits Summary:
Amazon offers a full range of benefits that support you and eligible family members, including domestic partners and their children. Benefits can vary by location, the number of regularly scheduled hours you work, length of employment, and job status such as seasonal or temporary employment. The benefits that generally apply to regular, full-time employees include:
1. Medical, Dental, and Vision Coverage
2. Maternity and Parental Leave Options
3. Paid Time Off (PTO)
4. 401(k) Plan

About the team
The Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) team is a new function within Customer Engagement Technology. We are responsible for the end-to-end process of defining, building, implementing, and monitoring our comprehensive data strategy. Our work encompasses developing and applying Generative AI (GenAI), Machine Learning (ML), Data Science, Ontology, and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to improve customer service associate and customer experiences.

Basic Qualifications

- 3+ years of relevant work experience working in ontology and/or taxonomy roles
- Bachelor's degree in Information Systems, Linguistics, Computer Science, or equivalent professional experience

Preferred Qualifications

- Master’s degree in Information Systems, Linguistics, Computer Science or other relevant fields
- Experience building ontologies in the e-commerce and semantic search spaces
- Experience working with schema-level constructs (e.g. higher-order classes, punning, property inheritance)
- Proficiency in SQL, SPARQL
- Familiarity with ontology programming libraries
- Exposure to data science and/or machine learning, including graph embeddings

Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.

Los Angeles County applicants: Job duties for this position include: work safely and cooperatively with other employees, supervisors, and staff; adhere to standards of excellence despite stressful conditions; communicate effectively and respectfully with employees, supervisors, and staff to ensure exceptional customer service; and follow all federal, state, and local laws and Company policies. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness and professionalism, and safeguard business operations and the Company’s reputation. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

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.

Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several US geographic markets. The base pay for this position ranges from $74,400/year in our lowest geographic market up to $166,500/year in our highest geographic market. Pay is based on a number of factors including market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Amazon is a total compensation company. Dependent on the position offered, equity, sign-on payments, and other forms of compensation may be provided as part of a total compensation package, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits. For more information, please visit https://www.aboutamazon.com/workplace/employee-benefits. This position will remain posted until filled. Applicants should apply via our internal or external career site.