Ontology Developer, R&D Data Science & Digital Health - Data Strategy and Platforms

At Johnson & Johnson, we believe health is everything. Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build a world where complex diseases are prevented, treated, and cured, where treatments are smarter and less invasive, and solutions are personal. Through our expertise in Innovative Medicine and MedTech, we are uniquely positioned to innovate across the full spectrum of healthcare solutions today to deliver the breakthroughs of tomorrow, and profoundly impact health for humanity. Learn more at https://www.jnj.com

Job Function:

Data Analytics & Computational Sciences

Job Sub Function:

Data Science

Job Category:

Scientific/Technology

All Job Posting Locations:

Cornellà de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain

Job Description:

Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine is recruiting for an Ontology Developer, R&D Data Science & Digital Health - Data Strategy and Platforms.  The primary location is Barcelona or Madrid, Spain but is also flexible to Titusville, NJ; Spring House, PA; or Cambridge, MA. 

Our expertise in Innovative Medicine is informed and inspired by patients, whose insights fuel our science-based advancements. Engineers like you work on teams that save lives by developing the medicines of tomorrow. 

Join us in developing treatments, finding cures, and pioneering the path from lab to life while championing patients every step of the way. 

Learn more at https://www.jnj.com/innovative-medicine 

Job Responsibilities

Johnson and Johnson Innovative Medicine is recruiting for an Ontology Developer, Data Strategy and Products to design, build, and govern the semantic backbone that connects data across pharmaceutical life cycle.  You’ll translate business concepts into well-formed ontologies, controlled vocabularies, and semantic standards that power interoperability, search and discovery, analytics, and AI/ML.  The role combines hands-on ontology engineering with product thinking, partnering closely with governance, knowledge management, and domain stakeholders.  You are a leading technical contributor and creative problem solver with a strong background in semantic technologies, ontology, graph-based data modeling, and a deep understanding of the life sciences domain.  

• Model, code, test, and release ontology modules and mappings that power knowledge graph, master/reference data, analytics, and AI/LLM applications. 
• Translate domain knowledge from subject-matter experts into OWL/RDF classes and properties, SKOS vocabularies, and SHACL constraints, and publish validated, versioned packages and APIs for broad reuse.  
• Develop and maintain ontologies representing domain-specific knowledge in healthcare and life sciences for drug discovery 
• Own the ontology roadmap for key domains – define scope, use cases, and success metrics; align with internal canonical models and relevant W3C/domain standards.  
• Model and govern the ontology using (OWL, RDFS, SKOS, SHACL); capture provenance and maintain SPARQL queries with validation. 
• Define and enforce standards—modeling guidelines, naming/versioning, change control, releases/deprecations—and partner with enterprise governance/tooling teams to embed reusable patterns for product teams and consumers.  
• Implement data quality checks (coverage, conformance, unit/ID normalization) and contribute to validation reports.  

Job Qualifications

• Desired Ph.D. or master's degree in bioengineering, computer science, IT, bioinformatics, physics, mathematics, or related fields, emphasis on semantic technologies and biomedical application.  
• 3-5+ years of hands-on ontology/knowledge modeling, taxonomy design, and metadata standards.   
• Proficiency with OWL, RDF(S), SKOS, SHACL, SPARQL, ontology design patterns and reasoning concepts.  
• Demonstrated experience in large-scale knowledge graphs construction, ontology development, pharmaceutical or healthcare domains integration.  
• Proficiency in semantic web technologies (SPARQL, RDF, OWL), familiarity with graph databases (Neo4j, Amazon Neptune, GraphDB).  
• Experience in CI/CD implementations, git usage, CI/CD stacks (Jenkins, GitLab, Azure DevOps), DevOps tools, metrics/monitoring, and containerization technologies (Docker, Singularity).  
• Strong skills in analysis, problem-solving, organizational change, project delivery, and managing external vendors.  
• Proven record leading improvement initiatives with multi-disciplinary and remote partners.  
• Excellent skills in customer focus, networking, communication, presentation 
• Demonstrated agile decision-making, performance management, continuous learning, and commitment to quality.  
• Ability to multi-task, prioritize work, exhibit organizational skills and flexibility to deliver maximum business value.  
• Capacity to translate discussions into user requirements and project plans.  
• Willingness to travel less than 25% to conferences and internal meetings. 

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