Semantic OntologyNavigator Engineer

Job Description: Semantic Ontology/Navigator Engineer

Location: Detroit MI (Hybrid)

Duration: 03 Months

Type: Contract

Overview

We are seeking a Semantic Ontology/Navigator Designer Engineer with at least 10 years of experience in enterprise software engineering semantic technologies and distributed this role you will design and maintain ontologies develop navigation services for knowledge graphs and build distributed microservices. You will work closely with technical and business teams to deliver reliable scalable and user-friendly semantic solutions.

Key Responsibilities Core Skills and Secondary Skills

1. Ontology Design & Modeling

Key Responsibilities:

• You will work with business analysts and subject matter experts to gather requirements and understand business processes.
• You will translate business concepts into formal ontology models using OWL and RDF making sure they accurately reflect real-world relationships.
• You will extend existing ontologies as the business evolves ensuring alignment with existing standards and keeping documentation up to date.
• You will help create clear guidelines for how ontologies are versioned and updated supporting smooth transitions as models change.
• You will participate in regular reviews to validate that ontologies are practical and usable for all relevant teams.

Core Skills:

• You can model and implement ontologies using OWL and RDF for business domains.
• You can translate business requirements into semantic data structures and relationships.
• You can document and version ontologies for consistency and reuse.

Secondary Skills:

• You are familiar with JSON-LD Turtle or other RDF serialization formats.
• You understand taxonomy and metadata management practices.
• You can support change management and adoption of semantic models.

2. Semantic Navigator Engine Development

Key Responsibilities:

• You will design and build a semantic navigator in Java 17 that allows applications to traverse and query knowledge graphs easily and efficiently.
• You will implement APIs (REST or GraphQL) that let other systems and applications interact with semantic data find related information and perform searches.

• You will optimize navigation and search features so that users receive results quickly even with large datasets.
• You will ensure that navigation and search endpoints are robust and handle errors gracefully providing clear feedback to users and developers.
• You will review and maintain code to ensure readability maintainability and alignment with best practices.

Core Skills:

• You can develop Java 17 applications with robust graph navigation and search capabilities.
• You can implement semantic navigation algorithms for path finding and entity discovery.
• You can build and document RESTful or GraphQL APIs for semantic data access.

Secondary Skills:

• You have experience with SPARQL Gremlin or Cypher for advanced graph queries.
• You can create user-facing visualizations or UI components for graph exploration.
• You can optimize algorithms for performance and scalability.

3. Fluree or Similar Integration & Data Ingestion

Key Responsibilities:

• You will set up and maintain data pipelines to import RDF or JSON-LD data into Fluree or a similar semantic database ensuring data is loaded accurately and on schedule.
• You will configure database indexes and access controls making sure data is easily retrievable and properly secured.
• You will work with other teams to validate that incoming data matches ontology definitions and is free from errors.
• You will support incremental updates and schema changes making sure data remains consistent and accessible.
• You will monitor data health and integrity proactively addressing issues as they arise.

Core Skills:

• You can integrate and query data in Fluree or similar blockchain-backed semantic databases.
• You can build data ingestion pipelines for semantic data using Java 17.
• You can implement access control and provenance features to secure semantic data.

Secondary Skills:

• You are familiar with batch and streaming data ingestion techniques.
• You can validate and monitor data quality and integrity.
• You can manage schema evolution and versioning in semantic databases.

4. Akka-Based Microservices & Distributed Systems

Key Responsibilities:

• You will develop and maintain microservices in Java 17 using Akka focusing on reliability scalability and clear separation of concerns.

• You will implement supervision strategies to recover gracefully from failures and ensure that services remain available.
• You will design microservices to support horizontal scaling using Akka clustering features where appropriate.
• You will integrate your services with message brokers or other backend systems for robust event-driven communication.
• You will participate in troubleshooting and on-call rotations to resolve production issues as needed.

Core Skills:

• You can develop actor-based distributed microservices using Akka in Java 17.
• You can implement fault tolerance clustering and persistence for high-availability services.
• You can integrate microservices with messaging systems for event-driven architectures.

Secondary Skills:

• You are comfortable with containerization tools such as Docker and Kubernetes.
• You have experience with Kafka or RabbitMQ for message-driven applications.
• You can monitor and maintain distributed system performance and reliability.

5. Testing Documentation & Collaboration

Key Responsibilities:

• You will develop unit tests integration tests and performance tests to ensure the reliability and correctness of your code.
• You will write and maintain clear user-friendly documentation for APIs ontology models and data pipelines.
• You will participate in code reviews offering constructive feedback to peers and accepting suggestions for your own work.
• You will collaborate with cross-functional teams in agile ceremonies knowledge sharing sessions and architecture discussions.
• You will help onboard new team members and support ongoing team learning.

Core Skills:

• You can write unit integration and performance tests for semantic and distributed systems.
• You can create clear documentation and guides for APIs and semantic services.
• You can collaborate in agile teams participate in code reviews and share technical knowledge.

Secondary Skills:

• You are familiar with CI/CD pipelines and Git-based workflows.
• You can facilitate workshops and training sessions for team members.
• You can contribute to process improvements and best practice adoption.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelors or Masters degree in Computer Science Information Systems or a related field.

• At least 10 years of hands-on experience building Java-based applications and microservices with recent experience in Java 17
• 3 years Practical experience with Akka for actor-based concurrency resilience and distributed systems.
• 2 years Experience modeling ontologies with OWL/RDF and querying them via SPARQL or equivalent.
• 1 year Proven ability to work with Fluree or a similar blockchain-backed semantic or graph database.
• 6 years Strong understanding of distributed system design fault tolerance and performance optimization.
• Excellent problem-solving communication and collaboration skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in knowledge management context-aware applications or digital twins.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS Azure GCP) and container orchestration.
• Experience with message brokers and event-sourcing patterns.
• Contributions to open-source semantic web or graph database projects.

Tools & Technologies

• Java 17
• Akka (Scala/Java)
• Fluree or similar semantic/graph database
• OWL RDF SPARQL
• REST/GraphQL APIs
• Docker Kubernetes
• SHACL
• Kafka/RabbitMQ or similar message brokers
• Git CI/CD tools