Role: SAP Technical Lead / Technical Anchor (S/4HANA & BTP)

Location: Chennai (Sholinganallur)

Role Summary:

As an SAP Technical Lead / Technical Anchor, you will be responsible for leading the technical design, development, and delivery of enterprise-grade SAP S/4HANA and SAP BTP solutions.

You will act as the technical authority for the team, bridging the gap between business requirements, architecture standards, vendor partners, and technical execution.

This role requires a strong "hands-on" technical foundation combined with team leadership capabilities to coordinate with multiple stakeholders including Architecture and Supplier partners, ensure strict adherence to project schedules, and provide regular progress updates to IT leadership.

Key Responsibilities:

Technical Leadership, Governance & Delivery:

- Technical Authority: Serve as the primary technical contact and subject matter expert (SME) for SAP S/4HANA and BTP development across RIEFW objects, guiding the team on modern architectural patterns.

- Vendor & Partner Coordination: Coordinate and align with multiple systems integrators, external consulting partners, and third-party vendors to ensure technical designs, interfaces, and deliverables are seamlessly integrated.

- Schedule Adherence & Risk Mitigation: Monitor technical progress against project schedules, ensure development milestones are met on time, and proactively identify, escalate, and mitigate technical bottlenecks or risks.

- Status Reporting & Communication: Prepare and present weekly technical status reports to IT leadership and project stakeholders, tracking development velocity, milestone completion, and overall system health.

- Code Quality & Reviews: Establish and enforce development standards, conducting rigorous code reviews to ensure performance, security, and maintainability.

- Clean Core Advocacy: Enforce SAP Clean Core principles (A, B, C, D classification levels) across all custom developments to minimize technical debt and ensure upgrade-stability.

Solution Design & Architecture:

- Design & Documentation: Lead the creation of robust Technical Design Documents (TDD), system architecture diagrams, and mapping sheets; define and document SAP Best Practices.

- Requirements Validation: Partner closely with functional consultants, business analysts, and business stakeholders to analyze operations, validate requirements, and suggest technical process improvements.

- Estimation & Planning: Lead effort estimations, story pointing, and sprint planning tasks within an Agile/Scrum framework.

Hands-on Development & Integration:

- Advanced S/4HANA Development: Design, develop, test, and debug high-performing ABAP code for complex RICEFW (Reports, Interfaces, Conversions, Enhancements, Forms, and Workflows) objects.

- Modern Programming Models: Build modern APIs and extensions using Object-Oriented ABAP (OOABAP), Core Data Services (CDS) Views, ABAP Managed Database Procedures (AMDP), Fiori/UI5, and the ABAP RESTful Application Programming Model (RAP).

- Output & Forms: Oversee and develop complex output programming using Adobe Forms and Smart Forms.

- Enterprise Integration: Architect seamless integrations between SAP and non-SAP systems utilizing OData APIs, RFCs, ALE/IDocs, Web Services, and Enterprise Proxies.

- SAP Fiori & UX Development: Design, develop, and deploy custom SAP Fiori applications and extend standard Fiori apps using SAPUI5, JavaScript, and XML views. Configure and manage the SAP Fiori Launchpad (including spaces, pages, catalogues, and target mappings) to deliver a seamless, modern, and intuitive user experience.

SAP BTP & DevOps Platform Engineering:

- BTP Development: Design and build cloud-native applications and extensions on SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) utilizing Business Application Studio (BAS) and Cloud Foundry/Kyma runtimes.

- BTP Services Integration: Leverage and configure core BTP services, including Integration Suite (Cloud Integration), Connectivity Service, XSUAA (Security), Event Mesh, and Cloud Scheduler.

- DevOps & CI/CD: Implement and govern modern cloud deployment processes, version control (GitHub branching strategies), and DevOps practices for SAP developments.

Center of excellence Support & Governance:

- Cross-Team Technical Enablement: Provide technical advisory, and advanced troubleshooting support to other internal project, product, and functional teams across the enterprise as required.

- Standardization & Best Practices: Define, document, and govern enterprise-wide SAP(ABAP/BTP) development standards, reusable architectural patterns, and development guidelines.

- Reusable Asset Library: Design and maintain reusable code repositories, API templates, and BTP utility services to accelerate delivery timelines for other teams.

- Quality Gate & Design Reviews: Act as a technical gatekeeper, participate in architectural reviews and code quality assessments for solutions built by other teams prior to production deployment.

- Centralized Platform Governance: Manage shared SAP development tools, BTP subaccounts, and automated CI/CD pipelines as a centralized service for the developer community.

Qualifications & Experience:

Required Experience:

- Overall Experience: 8+ years of IT experience, with a minimum of 6+ years of hands-on experience in SAP ABAP and S/4HANA development.

- Leadership Experience: 3+ years of experience acting as a Technical Lead, Technical Anchor, or Technical Manager leading technical delivery teams, coordinating with external vendors, and reporting to senior leadership.

- Implementation Track Record: Proven experience playing a key role in at least 2 full lifecycle S/4HANA greenfield implementations or major migration projects.

Technical Skills & Competencies:

- Deep expertise in S/4HANA ABAP, including OOABAP, CDS Views, AMDP, Fiori, and OData service development using the RAP (RESTful Application Programming) framework.

- Strong hands-on experience with SAP BTP development, runtime environments (Cloud Foundry/Kyma), and deployment tools (Business Application Studio, Git/GitHub).

- Proficient with SAP BTP Integration Suite and event-driven architectures (Event Mesh, Connectivity, XSUAA).

- Solid understanding of the SAP Clean Core paradigm and tools used for custom code remediation (e.g., ABAP Test Cockpit).

- Exceptional debugging and troubleshooting skills for complex transaction codes, APIs, and cloud integrations.

Methodology & Soft Skills:

- Strong knowledge of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) and modern development methodologies (Agile, Scrum, SAFe, Kanban).

- Proven ability to coordinate, align, and manage deliverables between Onsite and Offshore development teams.

- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear, concise status updates for both executive stakeholders and external vendor partners.

Core Technical Skills & Platforms:

- S/4HANA Implementation

- SAP ABAP (OOABAP, RAP, CDS Views, AMDP)

- SAP BTP (Business Technology Platform)

- SAP Fiori / UI5

- Project schedule adherence & Risk Management

Preferred Skills (Nice to Have):

- CALM

- Integration with GCP, CIG, OpenText, Vertex, etc

- Github Co-Pilot / VS Code (AI based coding)