Knowledge engineer

Knowledge engineers integrate structured knowledge into computer systems (knowledge bases) in order to solve complex problems normally requiring a high level of human expertise or artificial intelligence methods. They are also responsible for eliciting or extracting knowledge from information sources, maintaining this knowledge, and making it available to the organisation or users. To achieve this, they are aware of knowledge representation and maintenance techniques (rules, frames, semantic nets, ontologies) and use knowledge extraction techniques and tools. They can design and build expert or artificial intelligence systems that use this knowledge.

Excludes people performing programming and coding activities.

The following job titles also refer to knowledge engineer:

knowledge officer
information engineer
linked data engineer
taxonomist
knowledge engineers

Bachelor’s degree is generally required to work as knowledge engineer. However, this requirement may differ in some countries.

ISCO skill level is defined as a function of the complexity and range of tasks and duties to be performed in an occupation. It is measured on a scale from 1 to 4, with 1 the lowest level and 4 the highest, by considering:

• the nature of the work performed in an occupation in relation to the characteristic tasks and duties
• the level of formal education required for competent performance of the tasks and duties involved and
• the amount of informal on-the-job training and/or previous experience in a related occupation required for competent performance of these tasks and duties.

Knowledge engineer is a Skill level 4 occupation.

These occupations, although different, require a lot of knowledge and skills similar to knowledge engineer.

ICT intelligent systems designer
ICT system architect
database designer
software architect
data warehouse designer

These occupations require some skills and knowledge of knowledge engineer. They also require other skills and knowledge, but at a higher ISCO skill level, meaning these occupations are accessible from a position of knowledge engineer with a significant experience and/or extensive training.

This knowledge should be acquired through learning to fulfill the role of knowledge engineer.

Information structure: The type of infrastructure which defines the format of data: semi-structured, unstructured and structured.
Systems development life-cycle: The sequence of steps, such as planning, creating, testing and deploying and the models for the development and life-cycle management of a system.
Business intelligence: The tools used to transform large amounts of raw data into relevant and helpful business information.
Information extraction: The techniques and methods used for eliciting and extracting information from unstructured or semi-structured digital documents and sources.
Web programming: The programming paradigm that is based on combining markup (which adds context and structure to text) and other web programming code, such as AJAX, javascript and PHP, in order to carry out appropriate actions and visualise the content.
Task algorithmisation: The techniques to convert unstructured descriptions of a process into step-by-step sequence of actions of a finite number of steps.
Business process modelling: The tools, methods and notations such as Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) and Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), used to describe and analyse the characteristics of a business process and model its further development.
Resource description framework query language: The query languages such as SPARQL which are used to retrieve and manipulate data stored in Resource Description Framework format (RDF).
Database development tools: The methodologies and tools used for creating logical and physical structure of databases, such as logical data structures, diagrams, modelling methodologies and entity-relationships.
Systems theory: The principles that can be applied to all types of systems at all hierarchical levels, which describe the system’s internal organisation, its mechanisms of maintaining identity and stability and achieving adaptation and self-regulation and its dependencies and interaction with the environment.
Principles of artificial intelligence: The artificial intelligence theories, applied principles, architectures and systems, such as intelligent agents, multi-agent systems, expert systems, rule-based systems, neural networks, ontologies and cognition theories.
Natural language processing: The technologies which enable ICT devices to understand and interact with users through human language.

These skills are necessary for the role of knowledge engineer.

Use markup languages: Utilise computer languages that are syntactically distinguishable from the text to add annotations to a document, specify layout and process types of documents such as HTML.
Assess ict knowledge: Evaluate the implicit mastery of skilled experts in an ICT system to make it explicit for further analysis and usage.
Manage database: Apply database design schemes and models, define data dependencies, use query languages and database management systems (DBMS) to develop and manage databases.
Manage business knowledge: Set up structures and distribution policies to enable or improve information exploitation using appropriate tools to extract, create and expand business mastery.
Analyse business requirements: Study clients’ needs and expectations for a product or service in order to identify and resolve inconsistencies and possible disagreements of involved stakeholders.
Create semantic trees: Create coherent lists and hierarchies of concepts and terms to ensure consistent indexing in knowledge organisation systems.
Apply ict systems theory: Implement principles of ICT systems theory in order to explain and document system characteristics that can be applied universally to other systems
Define technical requirements: Specify technical properties of goods, materials, methods, processes, services, systems, software and functionalities by identifying and responding to the particular needs that are to be satisfied according to customer requirements.
Manage ict semantic integration: Oversee integration of public or internal databases and other data, by using semantic technologies to produce structured semantic output.

This knowledge is sometimes, but not always, required for the role of knowledge engineer. However, mastering this knowledge allows you to have more opportunities for career development.

Haskell: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Haskell.
Erlang: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Erlang.
Sas language: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in SAS language.
Ruby (computer programming): The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Ruby.
Common lisp: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Common Lisp.
Lisp: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Lisp.
Visual studio .net: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Visual Basic.
Java (computer programming): The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Java.
Information architecture: The methods through which information is generated, structured, stored, maintained, linked, exchanged and used.
Computer programming: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms (e.g. object oriented programming, functional programming) and of programming languages.
Data mining: The methods of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and databases used to extract content from a dataset.
Cognitive psychology: The human mental processes such as attention, memory, language use, perception, problem solving, creativity and thinking.
Prolog (computer programming): The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Prolog.
Openedge advanced business language: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in OpenEdge Advanced Business Language.
Visual presentation techniques: The visual representation and interaction techniques, such as histograms, scatter plots, surface plots, tree maps and parallel coordinate plots, that can be used to present abstract numerical and non-numerical data, in order to reinforce the human understanding of this information.
Javascript: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in JavaScript.
Decision support systems: The ICT systems that can be used to support business or organisational decision making.
Perl: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Perl.
Smalltalk (computer programming): The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Smalltalk.
Php: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in PHP.
Assembly (computer programming): The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Assembly.
C#: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in C#.
R: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in R.
Groovy: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Groovy.
Asp.net: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in ASP.NET.
Apl: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in APL.
Sparql: The computer language SPARQL is a query language for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information. It is developed by the international standards organisation World Wide Web Consortium.
Ict security legislation: The set of legislative rules that safeguards information technology, ICT networks and computer systems and legal consequences which result from their misuse. Regulated measures include firewalls, intrusion detection, anti-virus software and encryption.
Microsoft visual c++: The computer program Visual C++ is a suite of software development tools for writing programs, such as compiler, debugger, code editor, code highlights, packaged in a unified user interface. It is developed by the software company Microsoft.
Typescript: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in TypeScript.
Information categorisation: The process of classifying the information into categories and showing relationships between the data for some clearly defined purposes.
Ict project management: The methodologies for the planning, implementation, review and follow-up of ICT projects, such as the development, integration, modification and sales of ICT products and services, as well as projects relating technological innovation in the field of ICT.
Coffeescript: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in CoffeeScript.
Objective-c: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Objective-C.
Ml (computer programming): The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in ML.
Ajax: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in AJAX.
C++: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in C++.
Sap r3: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in SAP R3.
Cloud technologies: The technologies which enable access to hardware, software, data and services through remote servers and software networks irrespective of their location and architecture.
Swift (computer programming): The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Swift.
Matlab: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in MATLAB.
Unstructured data: The information that is not arranged in a pre-defined manner or does not have a pre-defined data model and is difficult to understand and find patterns in without using techniques such as data mining.
Linq: The computer language LINQ is a query language for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information. It is developed by the software company Microsoft.
Python (computer programming): The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Python.
Scratch (computer programming): The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Scratch.
Vbscript: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in VBScript.
Cobol: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in COBOL.
Pascal (computer programming): The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Pascal.
Abap: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in ABAP.
N1ql: The computer language N1QL is a query language for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information. It is developed by the software company Couchbase.
Scala: The techniques and principles of software development, such as analysis, algorithms, coding, testing and compiling of programming paradigms in Scala.

These skills and competences are sometimes, but not always, required for the role of knowledge engineer. However, mastering these skills and competences allows you to have more opportunities for career development.

Define database physical structure: Specify the physical configuration of database files on a given media. This consists of in-detail specifications of indexing options, data types and data elements placed in the data dictionary.
Design database scheme: Draft a database scheme by following the Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) rules in order to create a logically arranged group of objects such as tables, columns and processes.
Create database diagrams: Develop the database design models and diagrams which establish the structure of a database by using modelling software tools to be implemented in further processes.
Design application interfaces: Create and program application interfaces, their operations, inputs and outputs and underlying types.
Build business relationships: Establish a positive, long-term relationship between organisations and interested third parties such as suppliers, distributors, shareholders and other stakeholders in order to inform them of the organisation and its objectives.
Utilise decision support system: Use the available ICT systems that can be used to support business or organisational decision making.

2529 – Database and network professionals not elsewhere classified

 

 

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References

1. Knowledge engineer – ESCO