Director, Clinical Ontology

Position Overview

• Location Type: Remote (US)
• Job Type: Full-time
• Salary: $206,000 (This is a starting point, actual pay depends on location and experience. See Benefits for details.)

At Oura, our mission is to empower every person to own their inner potential. We are looking for a Director, Clinical Ontology to play a key role in shaping Oura’s future products and services.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development, and governance of Oura’s clinical ontology, encompassing physiological, behavioral, and contextual data domains.
• Collaborate across Science, Data Science, Engineering, and Product teams to ensure the ontology supports scalable data architecture, AI/ML models, and clinical-grade analytics.
• Define and manage controlled vocabularies, taxonomies, and standard terminologies (e.g., SNOMED CT, LOINC, ICD) to support cross-platform data integration.
• Serve as the primary authority on semantic data modeling, contributing to data dictionaries, metadata standards, and ontological consistency across Oura’s product suite.
• Define and manage ontology mappings between Oura and third-party health ecosystems, including EHRs, public health datasets, and research partners.
• Lead and grow a small team of ontology specialists and data architects.
• Stay current with emerging standards and technologies in health informatics and semantic web.
• Drive adoption of best practices in ontology lifecycle management, version control, and change governance.

Requirements

• Deep knowledge of biomedical ontologies and standards (e.g., HL7 FHIR, SNOMED CT, UMLS, etc.).
• Master’s or PhD in biomedical informatics, computer science, information science, or a related field.
• 7+ years of experience in ontology development, semantic data modeling, or health informatics.
• Experience engineering and supporting ontology solutions from the ground up, including close collaboration with full stack engineering teams and familiarity with engineering processes such as Agile, etc.
• Experience in consumer health, wearables, digital biomarkers, or remote patient monitoring strongly preferred.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional initiatives and translate complex health concepts into structured data frameworks, including working with clinical domain experts to inform ontology data curation.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to influence technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Company Information & Benefits

At Oura, we care about you and your well-being. What we offer:

• Competitive salary and equity packages
• Health, dental, vision insurance, and mental health resources
• An Oura Ring of your own plus employee discounts for friends & family
• 20 days of paid time off plus 13 paid holidays plus 8 days of flexible wellness time off
• Paid sick leave and parental leave

Oura takes a market-based approach to pay, which may vary depending on your location. US locations are categorized into tiers based on a cost of labor index for that geographic area.

• Region 1: $206,000 - $257,000
• Region 2: $190,000 - $237,000
• Region 3: $178,000 - $223,000

A recruiter can determine your zones/tiers based on your US location.

Note: Oura is not considering candidates residing in the following states: Alaska (AK), Arkansas (AR), Delaware (DE), Iowa (IA), Mississippi (MS), Missouri (MO), Nebraska (NE), Rhode Island (RI), South Dakota (SD), Vermont (VT), West Virginia (WV), and Wisconsin (WI).