Senior Ontology Engineer (all genders) (permanent / full-time)

at  AbbVie

Company Description
AbbVie’s mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people’s lives across several key therapeutic areas – immunology, oncology, neuroscience, and eye care – and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at www.abbvie.com. Follow @abbvie on X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Tik Tok.
Job Description

HERE’S HOW WE CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS TOGETHER

• with a diverse work environment where you can have a real impact
• with an open corporate culture
• with an attractive salary
• with an intensive onboarding process with a mentor at your side
• with flexible work models for a healthy work-life balance
• with a corporate health management that offers comprehensive health and exercise programs
• with company social benefits
• with a wide range of career opportunities in an international organization
• with top-tier, attractive development opportunities
• with a strong international network
  Multiple times, we have been globally recognized as a “Great Place to Work” and we are proud to provide our employees with the flexibility to maintain a healthy work-life balance. We take our impact on the environment and our communities seriously and therefore focus on giving something back on a regular basis. We are committed to equality, equity, diversity and inclusion (EED&I) – a commitment that is fundamental to us. This includes appreciating different perspectives, creating an inclusive culture and treating all employees with dignity and respect.
  At AbbVie, your individual contributions count – help us move mountains together. Be a part of our success, grow with us and accomplish more than you could have imagined. Sounds like the perfect career opportunity for you? We look forward to receiving your application! All you need is a complete CV – we will discuss everything else with you in person.
  Have questions? Email talentacquisition.de@abbvie.com – we look forward to hearing from you!
  Additional Information
  AbbVie is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to operating with integrity, driving innovation, transforming lives, serving our community and embracing diversity and inclusion. It is AbbVie’s policy to employ qualified persons of the greatest ability without discrimination against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy), physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, status as a protected veteran, or any other legally protected group status.
  US & Puerto Rico only - to learn more, visit https://www.abbvie.com/join-us/equal-employment-opportunity-employer.html
  US & Puerto Rico applicants seeking a reasonable accommodation, click here to learn more:
  https://www.abbvie.com/join-us/reasonable-accommodations.htm

TOOLS AND SKILLS YOU WILL USE IN THIS ROLE

• Excellent skills in developing Python code in a production environment and experience with enterprise platform integration
• Strong technical capabilities to programmatically use ontology management tools (e.g. CENtree), triple stores (e.g. Marklogic), and knowledge graphs (e.g. Neo4J)
• SQL, SPARQL, and Cypher skills (basic queries, table creation, views, and reporting)
• Familiarity with GitHub or other version control tools and project tracking platforms (e.g. JIRA)
• Experience working with foundational language models and LLM frameworks
• Mature interpersonal communication skills that will enable you to work with clients from AbbVie R&D and other business areas
• Excellent problem-solving skills
  Qualifications

EXPERIENCES THAT MAKE YOU A STRONG CANDIDATE FOR THIS ROLE

Required

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or other relevant technical degree and at least 6 years relevant experience OR Master’s degree in relevant field and at least 5 years experience OR PhD degree in relevant field
• Working knowledge of using and building APIs
• Experience with pipeline software (e.g., Apache AirFlow), Machine Learning workflows (e.g., Cloudera ML)
• Familiarity with FAIR data principles and common life science data standards
• Knowledge of semantics, data modeling (RDF), and data mining techniques
• Demonstrated history of successful execution in a fast-paced, collaborative environment and in managing multiple priorities effectively
• Demonstrated ability to learn, understand and master new technologies
• Strong written and oral English communication skills.

Beneficial

• Background in life sciences and work experience in the bio-pharmaceutical industry
• Working knowledge of the drug discovery and development process
• Familiarity with life science resources (e.g., public or commercial databases) and descriptive metadata for small molecule and biologics research (e.g. omics)
• Experience designing and developing taxonomies, reference data, or controlled vocabularies

As a Senior Ontology Engineer, you will be responsible for

• Working with a team of experts to create and maintain an enterprise ontology service layer to provide common access to ontology information within AbbVie
• Demonstrating the benefits of using ontologies in conjunction with our in-house AI/LLM capabilities to produce more accurate and AbbVie-specific results
• Delivering clean, scalable, well-optimized Python code and creating and maintaining documentation, metrics, operating procedures and training materials
• Contributing to building out data governance rules for reference data and their use
• Supporting larger R&D-wide convergence initiatives, like our AbbVie R&D Convergence Hub (ARCH), with a comprehensive meta data model
• Understanding the Ontology and LLM landscape and help to evaluate the right tools for the right tasks
• Participating in the identification and development of new reference data sources and demonstrating applicability in selected projects with business data owner