Job Requirements
Saint Louis, MO Springfield, VA
Top Secret/SCI Polygraph not specified
Senior Level Career (10+ yrs experience)
$245,000 - $320,000
Job Description
The Mission
The biggest bottleneck to AI at scale in the National Security space isn’t the algorithms, it’s the data’s lack of context. Pavati Solutions is looking for a Principal Ontology Engineer to serve as a high-visibility, embedded lead within our customer's AI/ML organizations.
In this role, you will be the primary semantic architect working directly with government leadership and their technical teams. You will move beyond theory to build the "worldview" that allows disparate mission data to be fused, reasoned over, and operationalized. You aren't just building models, you are defining the logic that powers national intelligence.
Why This is a "Leadership" Career Move:
Direct Customer Influence: You will be the "Voice of Semantics" for the customer. You’ll sit at the table with senior mission owners to translate complex operational needs into formal, scalable ontologies.
Empowering the AI/ML Lifecycle: You will be the bridge to the customer's data science teams, ensuring their LLMs and machine learning models are grounded in a rigorous, BFO compliant semantic framework.
Solving Interoperability at the Source: You will work across diverse organizations in the DoD and IC to harmonize data silos, using your expertise to create a unified data fabric that survives the transition from lab to field.
What You’ll Do
Architect the Foundation: Lead the design and implementation of mission-critical ontologies using Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) and OWL to represent complex domains like ISR, logistics, and multi-INT fusion.
Engineer Semantic Validations: Implement SHACL to enforce data shapes and ensure that integrated multi-source data is consistent and valid for automated reasoning.
Advanced Querying & Graph Strategy: Develop complex SPARQL queries to extract mission insights from massive knowledge graphs and triple stores (e.g., Stardog, GraphDB).
Technical Diplomacy: Work across agency boundaries to advocate for and implement semantic standards, ensuring long-term data interoperability.
Sustainment & Evolution: Mentor the customer’s internal teams on semantic best practices, evolving the ontology as mission requirements and AI capabilities shift.
Who You Are
A Master of Semantic Logic (12+ years): You are a Senior or Principal-level expert who thrives at the intersection of philosophy, logic, and data engineering.
The Trusted Advisor: You are as comfortable in a high-stakes briefing as you are at a whiteboard. You can explain the "why" of RDF/OWL to a non-technical leader and the "how" to a developer.
Mission Fluent: You understand the IC/DoD data landscape. You know that a "flight" or a "sensor" has different meanings in different contexts, and you know how to model that nuance.
Technical Pillars
Upper Ontologies: Expert command of BFO (Basic Formal Ontology) is essential.
The Semantic Stack: Mastery of OWL, RDF, RDFS, and SPARQL.
Integrity & Logic: Deep experience with SHACL for data validation and descriptive logic for automated reasoning.
Graph Architecture: Experience implementing and managing Knowledge Graphs in production scale environments.
IC/DoD Expertise: Deep familiarity with mission data challenges and security-hardened environments.
Why Pavati
Zero Bureaucracy Culture: We are a flat organization built by engineers, for engineers. We prioritize getting things done over corporate posturing, "sync" meetings, and internal red tape.
The "Best of Both Worlds": Enjoy the high-performance culture and compensation of an agile tech firm while having the deep mission impact of being embedded directly at the heart of the IC/DoD.
Radical Autonomy: We hire Principals because we trust their judgment. You won't be micro-managed; you will have the freedom to lead the customer’s semantic strategy and make the architectural calls that move the needle.
Unfiltered Mission Impact: You are embedded at the source of the problem. Your work isn't lost in a corporate "black hole"—you see your ontologies and logic frameworks driving real-world AI/ML outcomes every day.
Focused Professional Growth: Even while embedded, you are backed by the Pavati family. We provide the resources and elite technical peers you need to stay sharp, without the traditional "Big Prime" overhead.
About Pavati
Pavati is focused on closing the gap between commercial innovation and government adoption. We don’t do "business as usual." We help advanced technologies move quickly and securely into operational use by cutting through the noise and focusing on practical, high impact outcomes. We work alongside government and academic partners to deliver AI capabilities through iterative, mission focused development. If you want to spend more time architecting and less time navigating bureaucracy, we want to talk.
The biggest bottleneck to AI at scale in the National Security space isn’t the algorithms, it’s the data’s lack of context. Pavati Solutions is looking for a Principal Ontology Engineer to serve as a high-visibility, embedded lead within our customer's AI/ML organizations.
In this role, you will be the primary semantic architect working directly with government leadership and their technical teams. You will move beyond theory to build the "worldview" that allows disparate mission data to be fused, reasoned over, and operationalized. You aren't just building models, you are defining the logic that powers national intelligence.
Why This is a "Leadership" Career Move:
Direct Customer Influence: You will be the "Voice of Semantics" for the customer. You’ll sit at the table with senior mission owners to translate complex operational needs into formal, scalable ontologies.
Empowering the AI/ML Lifecycle: You will be the bridge to the customer's data science teams, ensuring their LLMs and machine learning models are grounded in a rigorous, BFO compliant semantic framework.
Solving Interoperability at the Source: You will work across diverse organizations in the DoD and IC to harmonize data silos, using your expertise to create a unified data fabric that survives the transition from lab to field.
What You’ll Do
Architect the Foundation: Lead the design and implementation of mission-critical ontologies using Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) and OWL to represent complex domains like ISR, logistics, and multi-INT fusion.
Engineer Semantic Validations: Implement SHACL to enforce data shapes and ensure that integrated multi-source data is consistent and valid for automated reasoning.
Advanced Querying & Graph Strategy: Develop complex SPARQL queries to extract mission insights from massive knowledge graphs and triple stores (e.g., Stardog, GraphDB).
Technical Diplomacy: Work across agency boundaries to advocate for and implement semantic standards, ensuring long-term data interoperability.
Sustainment & Evolution: Mentor the customer’s internal teams on semantic best practices, evolving the ontology as mission requirements and AI capabilities shift.
Who You Are
A Master of Semantic Logic (12+ years): You are a Senior or Principal-level expert who thrives at the intersection of philosophy, logic, and data engineering.
The Trusted Advisor: You are as comfortable in a high-stakes briefing as you are at a whiteboard. You can explain the "why" of RDF/OWL to a non-technical leader and the "how" to a developer.
Mission Fluent: You understand the IC/DoD data landscape. You know that a "flight" or a "sensor" has different meanings in different contexts, and you know how to model that nuance.
Technical Pillars
Upper Ontologies: Expert command of BFO (Basic Formal Ontology) is essential.
The Semantic Stack: Mastery of OWL, RDF, RDFS, and SPARQL.
Integrity & Logic: Deep experience with SHACL for data validation and descriptive logic for automated reasoning.
Graph Architecture: Experience implementing and managing Knowledge Graphs in production scale environments.
IC/DoD Expertise: Deep familiarity with mission data challenges and security-hardened environments.
Why Pavati
Zero Bureaucracy Culture: We are a flat organization built by engineers, for engineers. We prioritize getting things done over corporate posturing, "sync" meetings, and internal red tape.
The "Best of Both Worlds": Enjoy the high-performance culture and compensation of an agile tech firm while having the deep mission impact of being embedded directly at the heart of the IC/DoD.
Radical Autonomy: We hire Principals because we trust their judgment. You won't be micro-managed; you will have the freedom to lead the customer’s semantic strategy and make the architectural calls that move the needle.
Unfiltered Mission Impact: You are embedded at the source of the problem. Your work isn't lost in a corporate "black hole"—you see your ontologies and logic frameworks driving real-world AI/ML outcomes every day.
Focused Professional Growth: Even while embedded, you are backed by the Pavati family. We provide the resources and elite technical peers you need to stay sharp, without the traditional "Big Prime" overhead.
About Pavati
Pavati is focused on closing the gap between commercial innovation and government adoption. We don’t do "business as usual." We help advanced technologies move quickly and securely into operational use by cutting through the noise and focusing on practical, high impact outcomes. We work alongside government and academic partners to deliver AI capabilities through iterative, mission focused development. If you want to spend more time architecting and less time navigating bureaucracy, we want to talk.
group id: 91173635