SAP Development and Architecture – SAP Development Architect

SAP Development & Architecture – SAP Development Architect

Job Role: SAP Development Architect / SAP Technical Architect

Primary Skill: SAP Development & Architecture

Skill Level: Master

Location: All Romania

Language: English 

Role Overview

We are looking for an experienced SAP Development Architect to provide technical leadership for all SAP development activities within a project.

The role is responsible for defining the overall development strategy and technical architecture, establishing development standards, ensuring adherence to SAP best practices and Clean Core principles, and guiding development teams throughout the project lifecycle.

The successful candidate will act as the technical authority for SAP custom development and extensions, ensuring that solutions are scalable, secure, maintainable, performant, and aligned with the overall solution architecture.

Key Responsibilities

SAP Development Strategy & Architecture

• Define the overall SAP development strategy and technical architecture for the project.
• Establish architectural principles and technical guidelines for SAP custom development.
• Ensure all developments are aligned with the overall solution and enterprise architecture.
• Define appropriate approaches for custom developments, extensions, integrations, and enhancements.
• Design complex custom solutions that meet functional and technical requirements.
• Validate the technical feasibility of proposed functional requirements.
• Identify technical dependencies, risks, constraints, and architectural impacts.

SAP Development Standards & Clean Core

• Establish and enforce SAP development standards and best practices.
• Ensure development teams follow agreed coding, design, security, performance, and documentation standards.
• Ensure adherence to SAP Clean Core principles.
• Promote standard SAP functionality and minimise unnecessary customisation.
• Assess extensions and custom developments against Clean Core requirements.
• Define appropriate extension approaches for S/4HANA environments.

Technical Leadership

• Lead technical decision-making throughout the project.
• Provide technical guidance and direction to SAP development teams.
• Mentor developers and support their technical growth.
• Act as the escalation point for complex development and architectural issues.
• Drive technical alignment across multiple development streams.
• Ensure consistent implementation of the defined technical architecture.

Technical Specifications & Design Review

• Review and approve Technical Specifications (TS).
• Validate that technical designs correctly address approved functional requirements.
• Assess technical feasibility, complexity, performance, security, and maintainability.
• Challenge proposed solutions where they do not align with SAP standards or architectural principles.
• Ensure technical specifications provide sufficient detail for development and testing.
• Review development approaches and ensure consistency across the project.

Custom Development & Extensions

• Design and oversee complex SAP custom developments and extensions.
• Define appropriate development patterns and extension mechanisms.
• Ensure custom solutions are scalable, secure, reusable, and maintainable.
• Guide developers on complex technical implementations.
• Review technical solutions and development deliverables.
• Ensure custom developments remain aligned with the target architecture and Clean Core strategy.

Quality, Security & Performance

• Ensure SAP developments meet defined quality and security standards.
• Promote secure development practices and appropriate authorisation concepts.
• Ensure solutions are designed for scalability and high performance.
• Review potential performance bottlenecks and recommend optimisation approaches.
• Support technical testing, code quality reviews, and remediation activities.
• Ensure technical documentation is complete and maintained.

Required Skills & Experience

SAP Technical Architecture

• Strong experience in SAP technical development and architecture.
• Proven experience providing technical leadership for SAP development activities within complex projects.
• Strong understanding of SAP development standards and best practices.
• Ability to define development strategies and technical architectures.

SAP Development

• Strong understanding of SAP custom development, enhancements, and extensions.
• Experience designing complex SAP technical solutions.
• Strong ability to evaluate technical feasibility of functional requirements.
• Experience reviewing and approving technical specifications.
• Strong understanding of SAP development lifecycle, from requirements through design, development, testing, and deployment.

SAP Clean Core

• Strong understanding of SAP Clean Core principles.
• Practical experience applying Clean Core principles to SAP development and extension decisions.
• Ability to distinguish between standard SAP functionality, configuration, extensibility, and custom development.
• Experience defining sustainable extension strategies for SAP S/4HANA.

Technical Leadership

• Proven experience leading SAP development teams or technical workstreams.
• Strong mentoring and technical guidance capabilities.
• Experience making technical decisions in complex SAP programmes.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to developers, architects, functional consultants, and business stakeholders.

Governance & Quality

• Experience establishing and enforcing SAP development standards.
• Strong technical review and governance capabilities.
• Experience assessing scalability, security, maintainability, and performance of SAP solutions.
• Strong documentation and technical specification review skills.

Nice to Have

• Strong SAP ABAP / ABAP OO knowledge.
• Experience with modern SAP development technologies, including:
• • ABAP RESTful Application Programming Model (RAP)
  • SAP Fiori / SAPUI5
  • SAP BTP
  • SAP Integration Suite
  • APIs / OData
• Experience with SAP S/4HANA transformation programmes.
• Experience with Clean Core extensibility patterns.
• Knowledge of SAP ATC and code quality governance.
• Experience with SAP Cloud Application Programming Model (CAP).
• Knowledge of SAP DevOps / CI/CD practices.
• Experience with SAP Solution Manager or SAP Cloud ALM.
• SAP development or architecture certification.
• Experience working in large-scale global SAP programmes.
• Experience coordinating multiple development teams and external suppliers.

Technical Environment

• SAP S/4HANA
• SAP Development & Technical Architecture
• ABAP / ABAP OO
• SAP Clean Core
• SAP Extensions & Enhancements
• RAP / OData
• SAP Fiori / SAPUI5
• SAP BTP
• SAP Integration Suite
• APIs
• SAP ATC / Code Quality
• SAP DevOps / CI/CD
• SAP Cloud ALM / Solution Manager

Key Competencies

• SAP technical architecture
• SAP development leadership
• Development strategy
• SAP Clean Core
• Technical specification review
• Solution design
• Custom development & extensions
• SAP best practices
• Technical governance
• Scalability & performance
• Security
• Technical decision-making
• Developer mentoring
• Stakeholder management
• Risk and dependency management

Seniority Expectations – Master

At Master level, the consultant is expected to:

• Act as the technical authority for SAP development within the project.
• Define and govern the overall SAP development strategy and technical architecture.
• Establish and enforce SAP development standards and Clean Core principles.
• Independently make complex technical and architectural decisions.
• Review and approve Technical Specifications and challenge inappropriate technical approaches.
• Validate the feasibility and architectural impact of functional requirements.
• Design complex custom solutions and extensions.
• Provide technical leadership and mentoring to SAP development teams.
• Ensure all developments are scalable, secure, performant, maintainable, and aligned with the target architecture.
• Proactively identify technical risks, dependencies, and architectural inconsistencies.
• Drive adherence to SAP best practices throughout the complete development lifecycle.

Position Summary