Our client is a Zurich-based AI technology company building agent-driven intelligence platforms for complex industrial ecosystems. The company combines deep domain understanding with modern AI systems architecture to create decision-enabling software products. The culture is fast-moving, ownership-driven and impact-focused.

The Opportunity - This is a high-impact builder role at the intersection of:

• AI systems
• Knowledge graphs
• Product architecture
• Applied data engineering

You will shape the structured intelligence layer that AI agents rely on to reason, prioritise and act. Your output is not dashboards. Your output is capability.

Your Mission - You architect the semantic backbone of an AI-native product platform. Specifically, you will:

• Design and evolve large-scale domain ontologies (entities, attributes, relationships, constraints).
• Build and extend a production knowledge graph (e.g., Neo4j or comparable graph technologies).
• Translate real-world workflows into structured, machine-readable data primitives.
• Define what information AI agents need to reason effectively and design the data structures that enable it.
• Work hands-on with SQL and Python to implement, validate and iterate.
• Integrate third-party data sources via APIs, crawling strategies and ML-based inference.
• Design vector-aware structures and embedding-based reasoning layers where relevant.
• Define measurable success criteria for AI agent workflows and monitor them via telemetry tooling.
• Drive vertical expansion into new industrial domains by abstracting and adapting ontology structures.

You will work directly with senior product and engineering leadership and influence core architectural decisions.

What Makes You a Strong Fit - You think in systems, not dashboards

You bring:

• 5+ years experience in AI-driven B2B SaaS, applied data science, or data product roles.
• Deep understanding of knowledge graphs, semantic modelling and ontology design.
• Hands-on experience with graph databases (e.g., Neo4j, RDF/SPARQL, TigerGraph or similar).
• Strong SQL and Python skills — you build and ship yourself.
• Practical understanding of AI agent mechanics (reasoning loops, grounding, embeddings, context management).
• Experience working in modern cloud-based data ecosystems (Azure or comparable environments).
• Strong product judgement: knowing when “good enough” creates value faster than perfect.
• Comfort operating in fast-moving, high-ownership environments.

Valuable Additional Experience:

• Industrial, manufacturing, supply chain or procurement data environments.
• Vector databases and embedding-based retrieval systems.
• Data acquisition strategies and enrichment pipelines.
• API integration and data crawling.
• Startup or scale-up experience.

Requirements:

• Swiss, EU or EFTA citizenship, or a valid Swiss work permit.
• Ability to work on-site in Zurich (remote-only is not possible).

This Role Is Not For You If:

• You prefer predefined specifications over open architectural problems.
• You mainly focus on reporting or dashboard analytics.
• You require fully remote work.
• You seek highly structured corporate environments.

What You Can Expect:

• A highly central architectural role in an AI-native product environment.
• Direct collaboration with executive-level technical leadership.
• A lean, ~30-person international team where ownership matters.
• Fast iteration cycles and minimal bureaucracy.
• A Zurich-based workplace near the lake and public transport.
• Flexible working model (42-hour flexitime week, hybrid options, limited work-from-abroad days).
• 25 vacation days plus additional company holidays.