At a Glance
- Tasks: Design and deliver a proof-of-concept knowledge graph for investment fund data.
- Company: Join Vanguard, one of the world's largest asset managers, in a collaborative environment.
- Benefits: Enjoy a hybrid working model with flexibility and opportunities for in-person collaboration.
- Other info: Work with top knowledge graph practitioners and gain exposure to financial services.
- Why this job: Make a real impact by automating fund data processes across global markets.
- Qualifications: 5+ years experience in RDF/OWL ontologies and strong SPARQL skills required.
The predicted salary is between 70000 - 90000 £ per year.
hackajob is collaborating with Vanguard to connect them with exceptional professionals for this role.
Contract role to design and deliver a proof-of-concept knowledge graph modeling investment fund data for one of the world's largest asset managers. You will encode business rules, regulatory constraints, and identifier relationships as machine-readable ontologies — directly eliminating manual fund data processes and enabling automated validation across thousands of funds in 6 global markets. Defined POC scope, executive sponsorship, and weekly technical guidance from two of the most recognized knowledge graph practitioners in financial services.
What You'll Deliver (POC Scope)
- An investment fund ontology (OWL 2 / RDF / Linked Data) modeling the product hierarchy: Fund > ShareClass > Listing > Security, with 73+ identifier types (ISIN, SEDOL, CUSIP, LEI, Bloomberg, and more) governed across US, UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada, and Mexico
- SHACL validation shapes encoding business rules as executable constraints — e.g., "A US-domiciled ETF listing must have a valid ISIN" — that flag violations at fund launch and throughout the fund lifecycle
- SKOS concept schemes harmonizing vocabulary across 8+ internal systems, providing a semantic bridge between source-of-record platforms
- Data integration pipelines mapping relational data into RDF triples (Turtle/N-Quads) using R2RML, rdflib, or equivalent mapping tooling
- API layer enabling downstream applications to consume graph data programmatically
- Automated governance reports surfacing data quality gaps, missing identifiers, and cross-system inconsistencies
Required Skills
- 5+ years hands-on experience building and deploying RDF/OWL ontologies in production (not solely academic — you have shipped something real)
- SHACL for constraint validation, data quality enforcement, and shape-based governance
- SPARQL 1.1 — fluent in complex queries, property paths, and federated queries
- At least one enterprise triple store / graph platform: TopBraid, GraphDB (Ontotext), Stardog, RDFox, Amazon Neptune (RDF mode), or equivalent
- Python or Java for data transformation, pipeline orchestration, and integration work
- Familiarity with financial or securities identifiers (ISIN, SEDOL, CUSIP, LEI, or similar instrument identification schemes) — you don't need to be a fund accountant, but you need to understand what an identifier is and why it matters
- Working knowledge of data governance — you understand why constraints exist, not just how to code them
Preferred Experience
- Financial services domain: fund data, securities master, regulatory compliance (MiFID, UCITS, listing rules)
- FIBO (Financial Industry Business Ontology) or similar financial ontologies
- TopBraid EDG / GraphWise (our target platform — evaluation input from this hire is welcome)
- SKOS for vocabulary management and cross-system term harmonization
- R2RML / RML or equivalent relational-to-RDF mapping standards
- Ontology design patterns, modular schema design, ontology versioning (Git-based workflows)
- Enterprise-scale data modeling (thousands of entities, multi-market, multi-product-type)
- Exposure to rules engines, inference, or deterministic AI (SHACL-based reasoning, business rules automation)
- Agile delivery in a regulated environment
How We Work
Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.
