ABAP Development Manager

What You Can Expect

The ABAP Development Lead is responsible for leading a team of ABAP developers delivering SAP solutions across the Enterprise Applications portfolio. This role combines people management, technical leadership, and delivery accountability, ensuring SAP development capabilities are scalable, secure, and aligned with enterprise architecture and business objectives.
It leverages AI-enabled development, review, and analysis tools to improve code quality, reduce defects, accelerate understanding of complex ABAP solutions, and enforce enterprise standards across internal and AMS delivery teams.The role owns ABAP development standards, resource planning, and delivery quality across SAP ECC and S/4HANA environments and partners closely with Functional Leads, Architecture, Basis, Security, and business stakeholders. It is to lead the transition from classic ABAP to cloud-aligned development, enforcing clean core principles and guiding when to use ABAP Cloud, BTP extensions, or standard SAP services.

How You'll Create Impact

People Leadership & Team Management
Lead, coach, and develop a team of ABAP developers and senior analysts
Set performance expectations, conduct reviews, and support career development
Manage team capacity, skills planning, and workload prioritization
Foster a culture of quality, accountability, and continuous improvement

Technical & Solution Leadership
Provide technical direction for ABAP development across enterprise SAP initiatives
Define and enforce ABAP coding standards, design patterns, and best practices
Review and approve complex technical designs and code changes
Ensure solutions align with S/4HANA architecture, performance, and security standards
Drive responsible use of AI-assisted development tools to accelerate ABAP coding while enforcing enterprise standards
Use AI to analyze custom code, identify anti-patterns, performance risks, and clean-core violations
Establish guardrails so AI-generated outputs are reviewed, traceable, and production-safe

Delivery & Execution Management
Own delivery commitments for ABAP development workstreams
Partner with project and product leaders to plan, estimate, and deliver work
Ensure effective testing, release, and deployment processes
Own and enforce a rigorous root cause analysis discipline, leveraging AI to:
o Correlate incidents, defects, transports, and code changes
o Identify systemic patterns, not just single-failure causes
Use RCA outputs to drive standards updates, refactoring priorities, and architectural decisions
Track and reduce repeat incidents and regression defects
Apply AI tools to generate and maintain technical documentation, design summaries, and interface descriptions for custom ABAP solutions
Ensure knowledge artifacts are complete, current, and reusable, reducing reliance on individual developers or AMS continuity
Promote use of AI-assisted test generation for unit, integration, and regression testing of ABAP code
Use AI analytics to identify test gaps, defect patterns, and high-risk components
Ensure AI-generated tests are incorporated into the test management processes

Integration, Modernization & Architecture
Oversee development of integrations using IDocs, BAPIs, RFCs, OData, and APIs
Partner with middleware teams (e.g., SAP CPI / PI / PO)
Drive modernization efforts including legacy ABAP refactoring, CDS adoption, and performance optimization
Support SAP roadmap initiatives including S/4HANA upgrades and cloud enablement
Lead adoption of SAP BTP for extensions, integrations, and event-driven scenarios
Define when to use in-app ABAP, ABAP Cloud, or side-by-side BTP extensions
Partner with Architecture to enforce clean core and upgrade-safe development patterns
Review and approve all custom code for S/4 upgrade and cloud compatibility

Governance, Risk & Stakeholder Management
Ensure compliance with ITSM, change management, and SOX ITGC requirements
Partner with GRC and Security teams to ensure control effectiveness
Communicate status, risks, and outcomes to senior IT and business leaders
Use AI-assisted code and design analysis to objectively review deliverables from internal and AMS teams

Apply AI insights to:
o Validate complexity vs. effort
o Detect over-customization or poor design quality
o Identify skill gaps or coaching needs in vendor teams
Serve as final technical authority for accepting or rejecting work based on quality evidence, not just completion

What Makes You Stand Out

Core SAP & ABAP Technologies
ABAP/4, Advanced OO-ABAP, BAS
SAP S/4HANA & ECC development and optimization concepts
ABAP Dictionary, Enhancements, User Exits, BADIs
Fiori UI5 front-end
CDS Views, AMDP, SQLScript
Reporting & Forms
ALV, SmartForms, Adobe Forms, SAP Scripts
Integration & Interfaces
IDocs, BAPIs, RFCs
OData Services, REST APIs
Development & Lifecycle Management
SAP GUI, ABAP Development Tools (ADT / Eclipse)
Transport Management System (TMS)
Version control and DevOps tooling (e.g., Git, CI/CD concepts)
Platforms & Databases
SAP HANA, Oracle, SQLServer - with SQL & performance tuning fundamentals
SAP BTP (Integration Suite, Extension Suite - exposure required)
ABAP on Cloud / Steampunk concepts (preferred)
Exposure to cloud-enabled SAP environments (e.g., RISE with SAP)

CORE COMPETENCIES
People leadership and talent development
Strong technical judgment and architectural thinking
Delivery ownership and execution discipline
Ability to influence across a matrixed enterprise
Clear, executive-level communication

Your Background

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
12+ years total SAP development experience
Experience leading ABAP teams supporting Finance (FI/CO), Supply Chain (MM/SD), Manufacturing (PP/QM), or HR/HCM
Experience in regulated or SOX-controlled environments
Experience working in Agile or hybrid delivery models
SAP or leadership certifications (preferred)

Education
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)
10-14 years of progressive SAP ABAP development experience
6+ years supporting SAP ECC and/or S/4HANA platforms
4+ years in a people-management or formal team lead role
Demonstrated experience leading teams delivering production-critical SAP applications

Travel Expectations