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# Product Owner - Ontology

- **Company:** PENNYMAC
- **Location:** Cary, NC, United States
- **Experience:** Experienced
- **Salary:** $75,000.0 - $130,000.0
- **Contract:** Permanent contract
- **Skills:** Artificial Intelligence, Data Analysis, Information Systems, Information Engineering, Graph Database, Neo4j, Standard Sql, Software Deployment, SPARQL, Large Language Models, Knowledge Representation, Information Technology, Semantic Modeling, Domain Model
- **Published:** October 11, 2026
- **Apply:** https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=2ed73adbfc27fed0

## About the Role

* Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent work experience.
 * 5+ years in product management, business analysis, or data product ownership, including at least 2 years (preferred) in semantic modeling, ontology, taxonomy, canonical data models, or knowledge graphs.
 * Experience taking a domain from undocumented or inconsistent sources through conceptual modeling, formal specification, validation, and production deployment.
 * Working understanding of formal knowledge representation: class hierarchies, property definitions, cardinality, inheritance, logical constraints, and controlled vocabularies.
 * Working knowledge of SQL and the ability to profile source data independently to test whether a proposed model is supported by the data.
 * Proven ability to run modeling workshops and build consensus among SMEs who disagree about what a term means.
 * Excellent interpersonal, verbal, written, and presentation skills, with experience working with stakeholders at all levels, including executive management.
 * Preferred: Hands-on experience with at least one ontology or semantic platform, such as RDF, OWL, SKOS, SHACL, or SPARQL; property graphs such as Neo4j and Cypher; or a modern semantic layer tool.
 * Preferred: Mortgage origination or servicing domain knowledge, including familiarity with MISMO standards.

## Description

As a Product Owner, you will manage complex initiatives that span multiple integrated business systems and departments. You will create operational efficiencies by designing new business processes, act as a domain expert in end-to-end business functions, and drive technology solutions and workflow optimization across the division.

The Ontology Product Owner will:

 * Define and champion the enterprise ontology product vision, strategy, and roadmap.
 * Own the end-to-end product lifecycle, from ideation, requirements, and prioritization through development, launch, and iteration.
 * Make sure product decisions align with broader strategic initiatives, including revenue opportunities and cost-saving measures identified by product and business leadership.
 * Communicate product strategy, progress, and outcomes to senior management and other stakeholders.
 * Own and prioritize the ontology change backlog. Establish and run the ontology governance process, including change review and approval, impact assessment, and a stewardship model with named owners per domain.
 * Partner with data engineering on hydration: map source systems to object types and confirm pipelines keep the model current.
 * Define competency questions and validation tests for each domain model, confirming the model answers the questions the business actually asks before it ships.
 * Define adoption and quality metrics: reuse across workflows, duplicate or orphaned entity rates, definition coverage, mapping freshness, and time from change request to merged model change.
 * Own the semantic grounding layer for AI and agentic use cases, so agents and LLM-backed workflows reason over governed objects with inherited permissions, lineage, and audit trails rather than raw, ungoverned data.
 * Collaborate with business units, technology teams, and executive leadership to gather insights, align priorities, and ensure product success.
 * Translate business needs into clear goals, user stories, acceptance criteria, and functional requirements using use cases, process flows, and data analysis.
 * Serve as a domain expert for the business functions your product supports: assess current capabilities, find improvement opportunities, and define measurable outcomes.
 * Create and maintain product documentation, including requirements, process flows, and reports.
 * Demonstrate behaviors aligned with the organization's culture and values.