Senior Director, SAP Technical Lead

Merck•Rahway, NJ

11h•Hybrid

About The Position

The SAP Technical Lead is responsible for end-to-end technical leadership across our company's Human Health SAP global landscape, including SAP application development, Basis administration, Cloud Ops and SAP security. This role ensures system stability, performance, scalability, and compliance, while driving engineering best practices, automation, AI aligned with business objectives and priorities. The ideal candidate combines deep SAP technical expertise with strong leadership, stakeholder management, and a pragmatic approach to governance.

Requirements

Extensive experience in SAP and S4 HANA
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field.
15+ years of progressive SAP technical experience with demonstrated leadership in SAP related roles
Experience with various SAP systems and technologies, including but not exclusive to core ERP (ECC and S4 HANA versions), MDG, ATTP, GTS, GRC, BTP, GBT, SLT, Solution Manager, Cloud ALM, standard SAP integrations and connectors with SaaS SAP applications such as Ariba.
Deep hands-on expertise with: SAP Development: ABAP, Fiori/UI5, BTP (Build Zone, Automation, Services, Integration Suite), ATC, performance tuning.
SAP Basis: S/4HANA/ECC administration, HANA DB, system copies/refresh, transport management, performance/HA/DR, Solution Manager/Cloud ALM.
SAP Security: role/authorization design, GRC Access Control, SoD management, audit/compliance, HANA security.
Experience with S/4HANA transformations or major upgrades, including cutover and data migration coordination.
Experience with SAP RISE.
Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS), networking, and security fundamentals as they apply to SAP.
Strong understanding of ITIL processes and enterprise change management.
Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and documentation skills.
Experience with life sciences / pharmaceutical industry.
Asset Management
Benefits Management
Consulting
Leadership
Management System Development
Product Management
Requirements Management
Role Design
SAP Basis Administration
SAP Development
SAP HANA Administration
SAP Management
SAP S/4HANA
SAP Security Administration
SAP Systems
Security Controls
Stakeholder Communications
Stakeholder Relationship Management
Strategic Leadership
Strategic Planning
System Designs
Team Management
Technical Leadership

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in business or technology is preferred.

Responsibilities

Own the technical roadmap for SAP, aligning with enterprise architecture, business strategy, and release plans.
Define and enforce technical standards, development guidelines, and DevOps practices across our company's SAP technology stack.
Establish governance for transport management, code review and quality, security controls, and technical change management (ChaRM/SolMan, SAP Cloud ALM and technical environment landscape).
Partner with Enterprise Architecture and Security to ensure adherence to architectural principles, Cyber guidelines and regulatory requirements (GxP, SOX, as applicable), and audit readiness.
Bring innovation, new technology and modern ways of working, such as Agile.
Define a technical roadmap that prioritizes AI and latest technology.
Define and execute a roadmap to modernize our solutions and applications.
Lead ABAP and SAP development teams (including Fiori, BTP, Mobile applications and any other technology required to support our SAP tech stack landscape).
Ensure best practices for review and approval of technical designs, ensuring standards, performance, scalability, and maintainability.
Drive code quality through standards, peer reviews supported by AI, static analysis tools (e.g., ATC/SCI), unit testing, and automated pipelines.
Oversee custom enhancements, interfaces (IDoc/APIs), conversions, and reports; minimize technical debt and promote clean core concepts.
Guide modernization efforts: Fiori enablement, S/4HANA simplification, clean core strategy, and extensibility via BTP.
Ensure reliable operations of our SAP full landscape: installation, configuration, upgrades, SPS/FPs, infrastructure updates, HANA upgrades, and patching.
Oversee system performance, capacity planning, HA/DR, backup/restore, and monitoring (Cloud ALM, Onapsis).
Manage landscapes across on-premise, cloud (Hyperscaler), RISE, SaaS and hybrid environments, including transport paths, client strategy, and system refreshes.
Optimize HANA database performance and housekeeping; oversee job scheduling and workload management.
Ensure proper OSS notes implementation, and vendor coordination with SAP Support.
Lead best in class technical operations in collaboration with SAP and RISE operations.
Ensure proper SAP security architecture: role design (GRC-compliant), S/4HANA/Fiori authorization concepts and clean segregation of duties (SoD).
Oversee GRC Access Control, emergency access, and periodic access reviews.
Implement and monitor security baselines, logging, and threat detection (e.g., Security Audit Log, Read Access Logging, HANA auditing, Onapsis).
Ensure remediation of audit findings, vulnerability management, and ensure compliance with regulatory standards.
Establish CI/CD for SAP based on internal toolsets and standards, automated testing, and transport orchestration.
Implement observability: metrics, logs, traces; define SLAs for availability and performance.
Drive incident, problem, and change management, including root cause analysis and post-incident reviews.
Plan and lead cutovers, releases, and environment refreshes; manage downtime windows and stakeholder communications.
Collaborate with SAP functional leads, and SAP Platform operations to prioritize backlog and deliver roadmaps.
Provide technical estimates, risk assessments, and resource planning; manage vendor partners and statements of work.
Communicate complex technical topics in business terms; present status, risks, and mitigation plans to leadership.
Build and mentor a high-performing team of SAP technical experts, including developers, Basis administrators, security analysts and Cloud Ops.
Define roles, responsibilities, and career paths; foster a culture of innovation, modern technology, AI first approach, quality, accountability, and continuous improvement.
Standardize documentation, runbooks, and knowledge sharing.
Build internal capabilities in your Tech Hubs.