---
title: 'Ontology Engineer-Knowledge Graph & Identity at Samba'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/ontology-engineer-knowledge-graph-identity-samba-san-francisco-vs6vyb3f6sg9'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-07'
---

# Ontology Engineer-Knowledge Graph & Identity at Samba

- **Company:** Samba
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $150k–$180k
- **Employment:** internship
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-03-10
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-07
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/sambatv/7810c712-4c27-4161-9c1b-96353a210421

## Job description

Samba is a media intelligence company. We know what the world is watching, reading, and thinking about — in real time, at scale, across every screen. Our data exists with the consent of over a billion people, organized into the most complete picture of consumer attention ever built. The biggest brands in the world use that picture to make smarter decisions. We think it’s the most interesting data asset on the planet, because it’s the most culturally relevant.

As an Ontology Engineer on Samba TV's Knowledge Graph & Identity team, you will build, maintain, and extend the knowledge graph schemas, derivation pipelines, and graph data models that underpin Samba's measurement and audience intelligence products. Working closely with the Senior Ontologist and peer data scientists, you will implement ontological frameworks in production, contribute to entity resolution and data enrichment pipelines, and help ensure the graph layer remains accurate, consistent, and production-ready. This is a hands-on technical role. You are expected to write clean, production-quality Python and SPARQL, take ownership of well-scoped graph work streams, and grow your depth in semantic modeling under the guidance of senior team members. This role reports to the Data Science Manager, Knowledge Graph & Identity.

What You'll Do:

Ontology Implementation & Validation

- Implement and extend Samba's RDF/RDFS/OWL ontology schemas in the graph database - adding entity classes, properties, and constraints in a consistent, governed way under the direction of the Senior Ontologist

- Build and maintain SHACL validation shapes for post-load graph consistency checks; identify and triage data quality and schema violations

- Support ontology versioning, change log documentation, and consistency checking across schema updates

- Write efficient, well-structured SPARQL queries and graph traversals to support downstream data science and product use cases

Event-to-Ontology Derivation Pipelines

- Contribute to the event-to-ontology transformation and derivation layer - building PySpark/Databricks pipelines that aggregate raw TV viewership and web activity events into durable graph attributes (genre affinity, brand affinity, topic affinity, viewing summaries, lifecycle signals)

- Implement derivation logic specified by the Senior Ontologist and data science team; validate outputs against SHACL shapes before graph load

- Support incremental refresh and update logic aligned with the graph's batch refresh cadence

Technical Contribution

- Write production-quality Python - clean, well-tested, documented, and reusable by teammates

- Work with PySpark and Databricks to process and transform high-volume data as part of graph pipeline development

- Apply embedding-based approaches (semantic similarity, vector search) to entity matching and ontology alignment tasks

- Contribute to team tooling, documentation, and reusable components that improve knowledge graph development efficiency

Collaboration & Growth

- Partner closely with data engineering on pipeline design, data quality, and incremental ingestion patterns feeding the materialized graph substrate

- Participate in ontology design reviews and cross-functional working groups

- Work with product and operations teams to understand use case requirements and translate them into graph schema updates

- Actively develop expertise in W3C semantic web standards, RDF-native graph databases, and entity resolution under the guidance of the Senior Ontologist

Who You Are:

Must-Haves

- 2–4 years of hands-on experience in knowledge graph development, semantic data modeling, ontology engineering, or a closely related field

- Working knowledge of W3C semantic web standards: RDF, RDFS, OWL, and SPARQL - with practical experience querying or building in at least one triplestore or graph database

- Familiarity with SHACL or equivalent constraint and validation frameworks for graph data quality

- Strong Python skills - clean, readable, production-quality code with testing and documentation

- Solid understanding of data modeling fundamentals - entity-relationship design, taxonomies, hierarchies, and how to represent complex real-world relationships in structured form

- Familiarity with entity resolution or data matching concepts - understanding of why the same real-world entity appears under different identifiers across data sources

- Bachelor's degree required in Computer Science, Information Science, Mathematics, or a related field; Master's preferred

- Detail-oriented and proactive about flagging data quality issues and schema inconsistencies

Strongly Preferred

- Hands-on experience with Amazon Neptune or Stardog - or equivalent RDF-native triplestore; exposure to data virtualization (Neptune Orion or Stardog Virtual Graphs) a plus

- Working knowledge of PySpark and Databricks - particularly for large-scale event aggregation and transformation pipelines

- Familiarity with embedding models, vector search, or semantic similarity - applied to entity matching, ontology alignment, or knowledge graph enrichment

- Experience with LLM APIs or RAG-based approaches applied to information extraction, entity disambiguation, or schema mapping

- Domain knowledge in media, entertainment, or ad tech - content metadata, advertising entities, TV viewership data, or audience/identity data

- Exposure to identity resolution, probabilistic record linkage, or device graph approaches

## About Samba

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Samba (formerly Samba TV) is a media intelligence company that uses AI and first-party deterministic data from 1.5 billion people to power cross-screen TV and digital advertising measurement, targeting, and analytics for the world's largest brands, publishers, and platforms.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series B)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2008
- **Founders**: Ashwin Navin (Co-founder & CEO), Alvir Navin (Co-founder & COO)

## Core Business
- **Primary Industry**: Media Intelligence / Advertising Technology / Data & Analytics
- **Target Customers**: B2B — primarily Enterprise (global brands, agencies, publishers, and platforms like Disney, Havas Media, and "the vast majority of top global brands")
- **Mission Statement**: Unite TV, digital, and behavioral data through AI to power faster, more accurate media decisions.

## Products & Services
- **Samba Analytics**: Independent cross-screen measurement using first-party data for deduplicated reach, frequency, and performance outcomes. Allows optimization of campaigns while they are still in-flight.
- **Samba Audiences**: Exclusive audience segments and Private Marketplaces (PMPs) built from Samba's deterministic cross-screen signals for effective targeting.
- **Samba Knowledge Graph**: AI-powered mapping of interests, behaviors, and purchase intent, linking content to 1.5 billion real people, devices, and households.
- **Samba ID**: A universal identity solution linking content to real people and devices across screens.
- **Samba AI**: Contextually analyzes and indexes all media content, including brand logo detection on TV.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Total Funding**: $75.7M USD across 9 rounds
    - Last known round: Series B ($30M, June 2017, led by Union Grove Venture Partners and Disney Accelerator)
    - Other notable rounds: Series A ($7M, February 2012, led by August Capital)
- **Key Metric**: Owns first-party TV and web data for 1.5 billion people globally.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: August Capital, Union Grove Venture Partners, Disney Accelerator. Strategic clients include Disney, Havas Media, and "every platform and publisher you need."
- **Growth Signals**: Acquired Semasio in 2024, becoming the only provider owning both TV and web first-party data. Rebranded from "Samba TV" to "Samba" in 2026. Global workforce of 251 employees (+20.1% YoY growth). Operations span 6 countries with 13 offices.

## Competitive Advantages
- **First-Party Data Moat**: Nearly two decades of proprietary, deterministic data from smart TVs (24 brands, 48M devices) and web (1.5B people), creating a unique and un-copyable dataset.
- **Full-Funnel Integration**: The only provider to combine TV and web first-party data (after acquiring Semasio), offering planning, measurement, and activation in one platform.
- **AI-Powered Knowledge Graph**: Goes beyond traditional media measurement by mapping interests, behaviors, and purchase intent, enabling contextual analysis without relying on third-party cookies.

## Strategic Focus
- **Platform Expansion**: Evolving from a TV data provider into a comprehensive "media intelligence" company (rebranded in 2026).
- **Cross-Screen Unification**: Connecting TV and digital data to provide a complete view of audience behavior across all screens.
- **AI & Contextual Intelligence**: Deepening investment in AI for content analysis, brand detection, and predictive audience targeting.
- **Global Scale**: Operating across six continents and expanding direct partnerships with major platforms and publishers.

## Why Work Here
- **Founder-Led Culture**: Described as having "startup intensity and enterprise impact," with a "culture that values ownership over hierarchy and outcomes over optics."
- **Global & Distributed**: Teams span San Francisco (HQ), New York, London, Hamburg, Sydney, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, Warsaw, Taipei, and Amsterdam. Officed with a global, collaborative ethos.
- **Engineering & Data-First**: Ships products that "touch billions of signals daily." A strong emphasis on data science, engineering, and product roles.
- **Compensation & Benefits**: Competitive base salary, equity participation, performance bonuses, generous parental leave, flexible PTO, annual learning budgets, home office stipend, and best-in-class hardware.
- **Culture Values** (from company career page): Determined & Resilient, Self-Aware, Naturally Curious, Low Ego, Results Oriented.
- **Employee Rating**: 3.9/5.0 on LinkedIn (172 reviews), with Work-Life Balance at 3.9, Compensation at 3.8, and Culture at 3.8.

## Sources
1. [samba.com](https://samba.com/about-samba) — About Samba / Company History
2. [samba.com](https://samba.com/careers) — Careers Page / Culture & Benefits
3. [samba.com](https://samba.com/) — Home Page / Product & Platform Overview
4. [linkedin.com/company/sambatv](https://www.linkedin.com/company/sambatv) — LinkedIn Profile (Company Details, Size, Financials)
5. [jobs.lever.co/sambatv](https://jobs.lever.co/sambatv) — Lever Careers Page (Open Roles)

## Other roles at Samba

- [Senior Director - Data Platform and Cloud Services](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-director-data-platform-and-cloud-services-samba-warsaw-vnpe99twtfcg) — Warsaw, Poland
- [Senior Ontologist - Knowledge Graph & Identity](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-ontologist-knowledge-graph-identity-samba-warsaw-maadbvvzpzgv) — Warsaw, Poland
- [Data Scientist](https://feeny.ai/job/data-scientist-samba-amsterdam-cq236q9e9445) — Amsterdam, Netherlands
- [Data Scientist](https://feeny.ai/job/data-scientist-samba-warsaw-11hwb6kajyaz) — Warsaw, Poland
- [Software Development Engineer in Test](https://feeny.ai/job/software-development-engineer-in-test-samba-porto-6qf6nra7fhpa) — Porto, Portugal
- [Associate Measurement Partner](https://feeny.ai/job/associate-measurement-partner-samba-london-yknw975zv4zy) — London, United Kingdom
- [Programmatic Account Manager - German Speaking](https://feeny.ai/job/programmatic-account-manager-german-speaking-samba-london-afavw00gcd6v) — London, United Kingdom
- [Full Stack Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/full-stack-engineer-samba-san-francisco-5fr298dp4qwq) — San Francisco, CA
- [Workplace Experience Coordinator](https://feeny.ai/job/workplace-experience-coordinator-samba-new-york-city-zbwn6na20a0g) — New York City, NY
- [Principal Engineer, Architecture — Audiences & Measurement](https://feeny.ai/job/principal-engineer-architecture-audiences-measurement-samba-austin-97bw5v1r7h3d) — Austin, TX