Data & Applied Scientist - Ontologies & Semantics

SAP LTD.
Palo Alto, CA, United States
1 day ago
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Role details

Contract type
Permanent contract
Employment type
Full-time (> 32 hours)
Experience level
Experienced
Experience required
2 years minimum
Working hours
Regular working hours

Tech stack

Artificial Intelligence Amazon Web Services Google App Engines Microsoft Azure Cloud Computing Cloud Engineering Computer Engineering Data Systems Query Languages Graph Database Python (Programming Language) Machine Learning
+23 more
Open Source Technology Resource Description Framework (RDF) Tensorflow Standard Sql Salesforce.Com SAP (Applications) SAP HANA SPARQL Unstructured Data Google Cloud Enterprise Software Applications Pytorch Large Language Models Multi-Agent Systems Deep Learning Knowledge Representation Scikit Learn Information Technology Data Management Virtual Agents Workday Servicenow Databricks

Job description

Anyone can build an AI agent. What makes SAP’s agents different is accuracy grounded in the richest enterprise data and process context in the world. As a Data and Applied Scientist at SAP, you’ll help build the context engine grounded in SAP’s Business Ontology: the semantic infrastructure that transforms raw business data into the knowledge layer powering SAP’s AI agents and assistants.

This is an early-career role for engineers and scientists who are sharp, curious, and ready to do real work on hard problems from day one.

What you’ll build

You’ll contribute to the semantic and contextual foundation of SAP’s AI. While generic AI agents operate on surface-level patterns, SAP agents are accurate because they understand the real semantics of enterprise business master data, process flows, and domain relationships. You’ll work alongside senior scientists and engineers to build and scale the layer that makes that possible.

  • Support the design and maintenance of enterprise ontologies and semantic models that give AI agents accurate, grounded understanding of SAP and connected business landscapes - learning how data from SAP, Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, MES/IoT systems, and external providers gets harmonized into unified semantic layers.
  • Contribute to AI capabilities including RAG pipelines, embeddings, vector databases, and enterprise knowledge grounding that make SAP’s agents accurate and reliable in production.
  • Develop and iterate on AI solutions - including generative AI and LLM-based approaches - using enterprise business data, knowledge graphs, business process intelligence, and structured and unstructured data assets.
  • Learn SAP’s deep data and process context - data models, metadata structures, and business process semantics across Order-to-Cash, Procure-to-Pay, Record-to-Report, and Plan-to-Produce - and apply that context to ground AI solutions in real enterprise reality.
  • Work with modern cloud and data platforms including Databricks, SAP Datasphere, SAP HANA Cloud, AWS, Azure, and GCP, gaining hands-on experience with scalable AI workflows.
  • Collaborate across product, engineering, and business teams to understand how ambiguous business challenges get translated into concrete AI solutions, and contribute meaningfully to that process from early stages through deployment.
  • Apply machine learning, deep learning, and statistical modeling to build and evaluate AI solutions using real-world enterprise datasets.

Requirements

  • Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, Engineering, or a related quantitative field.
  • 2 years of Machine Learning, Computer Science, Computer Engineering or related field experience work.
  • Foundational understanding of knowledge representation, semantic data systems, or graph databases (through coursework, research, or personal projects).
  • Familiarity with at least one graph query language (SPARQL, Cypher, or GQL) or a willingness to learn quickly; some exposure to the trade-offs between RDF triple stores and property graph databases is a plus.
  • Exposure to modern GenAI concepts - RAG, embeddings, vector databases, semantic retrieval - through coursework, research, or hands-on experimentation.
  • Solid Python and SQL skills; some experience with ML libraries such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or scikit-learn (academic projects, research work, and personal projects all count).
  • Eagerness to learn production-grade development practices and grow into operating AI/ML solutions end-to-end.
  • Clear, collaborative communication style - you ask good questions, explain your thinking, and work well with others., * Hands-on experience - through internships, research, or projects - with ontology design, semantic modeling, or knowledge graphs.
  • Any exposure to enterprise software ecosystems (SAP, Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, or similar) is a real accelerator here.
  • Familiarity with the W3C stack (OWL, RDF/RDFS, SKOS, SHACL) or property graph query languages (Cypher, GQL).
  • Academic or project experience in machine learning and deep learning, including training, evaluating, and improving models on real datasets.
  • Curiosity about agentic AI, reasoning frameworks, multi-agent architectures, or planning and orchestration.
  • Experience contributing to shared or reusable codebases - open-source projects, research codebases, or team projects.

About the company

At SAP, we keep it simple: you bring your best to us, and we’ll bring out the best in you. We’re builders touching over 20 industries and 80% of global commerce, and we need your unique talents to help shape what’s next. The work is challenging - but it matters. You’ll find a place where you can be yourself, prioritize your wellbeing, and truly belong. What’s in it for you? Constant learning, skill growth, great benefits, and a team that wants you to grow and succeed., The Application AI team sits at the foundation layer - We build the LLM systems and intelligent infrastructure that run across SAP’s global platforms, which means the work you do here doesn’t just influence one product, it sets the direction for how AI operates at enterprise scale. A core part of that challenge is making AI genuinely understand the business not just process text, but reason over richly structured enterprise data through robust data ontologies and semantic knowledge frameworks that give models real context about how SAP’s world is organized. This is a team that values engineers who think like owners: people who want to define the architecture, not just implement a spec. You’ll work in an environment designed around trust and autonomy, where the expectation is that you move fast, make calls, and drive outcomes without layers of approval slowing you down.

dlhiring #LI-AK5

Bring out your best

SAP innovations help more than four hundred thousand customers worldwide work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively. Originally known for leadership in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, SAP has evolved to become a market leader in end-to-end business application software and related services for database, analytics, intelligent technologies, and experience management. As a cloud company with two hundred million users and more than one hundred thousand employees worldwide, we are purpose-driven and future-focused, with a highly collaborative team ethic and commitment to personal development. Whether connecting global industries, people, or platforms, we help ensure every challenge gets the solution it deserves. At SAP, you can bring out your best.

We win with inclusion

SAP’s culture of inclusion, focus on health and well-being, and flexible working models help ensure that everyone - regardless of background - feels included and can run at their best. At SAP, we believe we are made stronger by the unique capabilities and qualities that each person brings to our company, and we invest in our employees to inspire confidence and help everyone realize their full potential. We ultimately believe in unleashing all talent and creating a better world.

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