A&O Shearman
Knowledge Engineering & Platform Lead
Get notified of more jobs like this · No spam, ever
How your CV stacks up
Upload your CV to see how well it fits this job role
?%
We are recruiting for a Knowledge Engineering & Platform Lead to join our Information Technology team in London.
Information Technology team - London
The core of the global technology department's mission is to provide stable, reliable, and secure platforms and services to our partners, staff, and clients and fulfil our regulatory obligations across 28 countries. To ensure that a consistent and standardised IT service is delivered to all offices, IT is managed and led as a global function, enabling all offices to benefit from complete systems integration and economies of scale. We have around 700 technologists based predominantly in the UK, Singapore, and increasingly in the US.
Enterprise Architecture and Technology Platforms
To develop and maintain the firm's technology strategy and enterprise architecture. In parallel, own, improve, and simplify the firm's key technology 'building blocks' by designing, building, and managing the core technology platforms which are fundamental to delivering strategic business goals.
What you will do
Reporting to the Head of Knowledge Technology Platforms, the Knowledge Engineering & Platform Lead is a senior role responsible for developing and delivering the firm-wide strategy for legal knowledge platforms, ontology management, and knowledge engineering. Working with the Global Chief Knowledge Officer and key Knowledge, Technology, Data, and AI stakeholders, the role designs the structures, standards, and governance needed to make legal knowledge discoverable, reliable, and reusable across A&O Shearman.
By leveraging data-driven insights and emerging technologies, the role champions the continuous improvement of legal knowledge solutions and enables lawyers globally to find, trust, and reuse the firm's legal knowledge more effectively.
- Lead on the development of the product strategy and multi-year roadmap for the firm's legal knowledge platforms, ensuring alignment with Knowledge, Technology, Data & AI, and wider firm strategies.
- Work with the Global Chief Knowledge Officer, Head of Knowledge Technology Platforms, Knowledge, Innovation, Data Governance, and Practice Group SMEs to design and deliver the next generation of legal knowledge solutions for A&O Shearman.
- Oversee the knowledge engineering and ontology management capability for legal knowledge, ensuring agreed taxonomies, ontology relationships, entity models, metadata standards, and governance controls are embedded consistently across platforms.
- Lead the migration from legacy knowledge platforms to a modern, AI-enabled knowledge ecosystem, ensuring continuity of service, data quality, adoption, and measurable business value.
- Establish and maintain platform implementation standards and metadata schemas that keep the knowledge model accurate, governed, scalable, and fit for search, retrieval-augmented generation, automated classification, and other AI-enabled services.
- Partner with Practice Group SMEs and Knowledge teams to capture and validate domain knowledge, translating legal and practice expertise into maintainable ontology relationships, platform rules, and metadata structures.
- Work with Data & AI, Enterprise Architecture, Information Security, Risk, and Compliance teams to ensure the knowledge model aligns with enterprise architecture, regulatory obligations, client confidentiality, access controls, and responsible AI requirements.
- Act as the strategic bridge between senior business stakeholders, lawyers & innovation teams, technical teams, and technology vendors, shaping requirements, resolving competing priorities, and communicating a clear product vision.
- Lead and coordinate a global matrix network of Knowledge Tech colleagues, Knowledge Lawyers, Innovation teams, Practice Group SMEs, Data Governance colleagues, Data & AI specialists, platform owners, and third-party providers to deliver the product roadmaps.
- Drive adoption and continuous improvement of legal knowledge solutions by using data-driven insights, user feedback, and market developments to improve knowledge discovery, reuse, and lawyer experience.
- Stay ahead of legal technology, AI, search, ontology, knowledge graph, and enterprise data trends, using external insight to inform platform evolution and investment priorities.
- Contribute to budget planning, vendor performance management, benefits tracking, and operational performance across the knowledge platform portfolio.
Reasons to use Rodeo
Start with a chat, not a search bar
Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.
It searches the market for you
Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
What you will have
Experience:
- At least 10 years' experience in technology, knowledge management, legal technology, data platforms, or a closely related discipline, ideally within legal, professional services, or another regulated sector.
- At least 5 years' experience leading strategic platform, knowledge engineering, legal knowledge, data, or AI-enabled transformation programmes.
- Demonstrable experience defining and delivering product strategy and roadmaps for enterprise platforms with global stakeholder communities.
- Demonstrable senior-level experience designing, governing, or operationalising ontologies, taxonomies, metadata models, knowledge graphs, or structured knowledge frameworks, including their use in AI-enabled search, retrieval-augmented generation, automated classification, or knowledge discovery.
- Strong understanding of data quality, metadata management, content lifecycle governance, access controls, and information security principles.
- Knowledge and understanding of existing Knowledge Management processes and best practices, including where there are shortcomings, bottlenecks, and frustrations in processes or technology.
- Strong understanding of legal workflows, legal knowledge, practice group needs, and the way legal knowledge is created, governed, reused, and consumed across jurisdictions.
- Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders, resolve competing priorities, and drive adoption of new working practices in a complex global matrix environment.
- Proven vendor, budget, roadmap, and benefits-management experience.
- Demonstrates a strong professional interest in technology, automation, artificial intelligence, and data-driven decision-making within the legal sector. Literacy in AI technologies (LLMs, embeddings, RAG, Agents) and how these can be applied to knowledge management workflows.
- Have an understanding, or willingness to learn, the capabilities of existing Legal technology solutions such as M365, MS Teams, iManage, and Search, and how they can be integrated so that we can use them to solve the business challenges faced by our lawyers.
- A passion for innovation and user-centric design, with the ability to identify and implement new ideas and solutions.
- Experience in a variety of roles that evidence an ability to challenge and embed new working practices while leading a can-do culture focusing on curiosity, collaboration, learning, and development.
- Demonstrable experience managing SaaS-based applications, preferably within a legal or professional services context.
- Strong vendor management skills and experience negotiating contracts.
- Knowledge of current legal technology, AI, search, knowledge graph, ontology, and enterprise data trends.
Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
Personal:
- High level of personal credibility, impact, and influence with proven ability to work effectively and persuasively at all levels.
- Excellent industry knowledge (understanding the work and needs of individual lawyers and practice groups and the potential opportunities and cross-overs in developing, adapting, and deploying different technologies).
- Proven business acumen and ability to understand how they add value to the function, firm, or clients.
- Promotes the firm's values at all times, and is comfortable working within a large and complex, matrixed environment with multiple stakeholders and interest groups.
- Proven leadership qualities, with a track record of guiding teams towards achieving strategic objectives.
- Excellent presentation, communication, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to build and sustain strong client and colleague relationships in a global matrix organisation.
Should you require additional support at any stage of the recruitment process due to a disability or a health condition, please do not hesitate to contact a member of our recruitment team who will work with you to provide any adjustments as required.
We are an equal opportunities recruiter and do not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, sex, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, or any other protected characteristic.
We recognise that our people are our most valuable asset, which is reflected in the wide range of benefits that are available to our employees. Some of these benefits include: our occupational pension scheme, group income protection cover, private medical insurance, mental health resources and free apps, health and wellbeing services encompassing an onsite gym, wellbeing centre, and GP service, emergency back-up care support, parental and special leave, holiday entitlement increasing with length of service, holiday trading, season ticket loans, and online discounts and lifestyle management services.
“It took my CV and asked me questions relevant to understanding what kind of jobs to suggest for me. Suggestions were almost perfect. Jobs were exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
Jessica, London
Skills
Location