Enterprise Ontology Leader - IDEA by Lear

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ENTERPRISE ONTOLOGY LEADER – IDEA BY LEAR
SOUTHFIELD, MI

About Lear and IDEA by Lear:

Lear is a global Tier 1 automotive supplier of Seating and E‑Systems, powering the next generation of mobility with advanced electronics, connectivity, and intelligent manufacturing. As part of our multi‑year Digital & Automation Transformation — IDEA by Lear (Innovation, Digital, Engineering, and Automation) — we are building an enterprise-level Data and AI capability that enables faster, more automated, and more intelligent decision-making across our global operations.

To accelerate this transformation, Lear has made a significant, multiyear strategic investment in Palantir Foundry and Palantir AIP, establishing a unified enterprise ontology, a single source of truth, and a foundation for AI-driven automation at hyperscale.

We are expanding our Data & AI leadership team and seeking an experienced Enterprise Ontology Leader to architect, grow, and operationalize our global ontology strategy.

As a member of the IDEA by Lear team, the Enterprise Ontology Leader will be responsible for designing, governing, and evolving Lear’s enterprise ontology within Palantir Foundry and AIP. This leader will develop reusable ontology objects, common semantic layers, and data frameworks that support advanced analytics, production automation, and AI/ML workloads across Seating, E-Systems, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Quality, Engineering, Finance, and Commercial operations.

This role will be foundational in enabling a single pane of glass view of operational performance and powering new digital solutions that scale globally and accelerate speed to value.

The Role:

Your work will include, but not be limited to:

Enterprise Ontology Architecture & Strategy 

• Design, own, and continuously enhance Lear’s enterprise-wide ontology, including semantic models, entity relationships, and shared data objects. 
• Develop a long-term ontology roadmap aligned to the IDEA by Lear digital strategy and Palantir platform capabilities. 
• Define ontology patterns and reusable data objects to enable rapid use case development and cross-functional adoption. 

Foundry & AIP Enablement 

• Architect semantic layers and feature sets within Palantir Foundry to support data ingestion, transformation, data mesh principles, and operational applications. 
• Enable AIP use cases through well-architected ontology objects that support AI agent workflows, LLM grounding, and automated reasoning. 

Collaboration & Leadership 

• Partner with business leaders, product owners, data engineers, data scientists, and manufacturing teams across the globe to understand needs and translate them into ontology designs. 
• Serve as the enterprise expert and evangelist for semantic modeling, data standards, and ontology best practices. 
• Mentor and guide a growing internal ontology team and cross-functional data contributors. 

Governance & Quality 

• Establish and maintain ontology governance standards, versioning controls, and approval workflows. 
• Ensure consistency, accuracy, and scalability of enterprise data definitions across business units. 
• Drive adoption of a single source of truth mentality across the organization. 

Analytics & Automation Enablement 

• Enable the buildout of scalable analytical applications, digital twins, quality intelligence solutions, shopfloor automations, and enterprise KPI frameworks. 
• Define ontology components that power predictive analytics, AI/ML models, and automated decision systems. 

Advantages of working at Lear in the IDEA by Lear group:

This is a high-impact leadership role at the center of Lear’s global Digital & Automation Transformation. You will help shape the future of how a multibillion-dollar organization uses data, AI, and automation to run smarter, safer, and more efficiently.

You will directly influence:

• Our global digital manufacturing strategy
• AI-driven process automation
• Enterprise visibility and operational intelligence
• The foundation of Lear’s next generation of digital products

Your Qualifications:

Required 

• Bachelor’s in Computer Science, Data Science, Knowledge Engineering, Information Systems, or related field or equivalent work experience in the field. 
• Experience in ontology development, semantic modeling, enterprise data architecture, or knowledge graph design. 
• Proven hands-on expertise with Palantir Foundry ontology 
• Deep understanding of data modeling, reference architectures, entity-relationship design, and metadata management. 
• Strong experience working in complex global environments with large volumes of manufacturing, supply chain, commercial, or engineering data. 
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to influence and collaborate with technical and business leaders. 

Preferred 

• Experience with Palantir AIP, knowledge graph-based AI, or grounding LLMs through semantic ontologies. 
• Background in manufacturing or automotive industries. 
• Experience with data governance frameworks and data mesh architectures. 
• Ability to lead cross-functional teams and drive cultural adoption of data standards. 

What Success Looks Like 

• Within this role, success includes: 
• A mature, scalable enterprise ontology powering critical business processes and AI solutions. 
• Widespread reuse of ontology objects across teams, improving time-to-value for digital solutions. 
• High adoption of Foundry and AIP across global plants, engineering teams, and enterprise functions. 
• Strong alignment between semantic architecture, foundational data models, and business strategy. 

Lear Corporation is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to a diverse workplace.

Applicants must submit their resume for consideration using our applicant tracking system. Due to the high volume of applications received, only candidates selected for interviews will be contacted. Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship. Unsolicited resumes from search firms or employment agencies, or similar, will not be paid a fee and will become the property of Lear Corporation.