Senior Manager, SAP Applications & Engineering (Remote)

Cole Haan•Greenland, NH

12d•Remote

About The Position

The Senior Manager, SAP Applications & Engineering leads the engineering and functional team responsible for Cole Haan’s SAP portfolio across Retail and Supply Chain. The role owns technical execution: the approach and standards for building, team development, and the technical performance of system integrators, contractors, and vendors. This is a hands-on technical leadership role, with direct involvement in design and code review, resolving difficult problems, unblocking critical-path work, prototyping, and improving the team’s output. The role is not intended to serve as routine delivery capacity on committed work. The position leads engineering and stabilization across S/4HANA and connected platforms, including merchandising, allocation and assortment, article and inventory management, store replenishment, warehouse management, logistics, procurement, order fulfillment, EDI, and integrations. It owns ongoing platform health, enhancement backlogs and sequencing, release cadence, regression discipline, operational performance, and SAP release and maintenance cycles, as well as post-launch defects, enhancements, and transition to ongoing product operations. The role leads and develops a small team of experienced specialists, establishes domain ownership and direct business relationships, and supports workforce planning, role definition, recruiting, and onboarding. It owns technical readiness assessment for releases and implementations, including environments, integration testing, data conversion and reconciliation, defect resolution, cutover, rollback planning, support transition, documentation, monitoring, and hypercare stabilization. A project manager assigned by the IT PMO owns portfolio capacity planning, sequencing, delivery timing, risks, dependencies, status reporting, stage gates, and business communication about dates and commitments. This role owns technical feasibility, solution approach, level of effort, technical resource requirements, and technical risks and assumptions. The role works within architecture direction established by the Senior Director and SAP technical architect, and has delegated authority over engineering standards, technical trade-offs, vendor deliverable acceptance, team work allocation, technical resource plans, and technical readiness recommendations. The position reports into the Go-to-Market Platforms organization; the job description does not specify a direct reporting title.

Requirements

At least 8 years of experience in technical delivery, enterprise applications, or a closely related technology role.
At least 3 years leading technical teams, including senior individual contributors, with evidence of developing people.
Hands-on depth in integration patterns, release and environment management, data migration and conversion, and defect triage sufficient to challenge designs and estimates.
Hands-on SAP delivery experience in apparel, footwear, or accessories using S/4HANA Fashion (FMS), AFS, or S/4HANA Retail in a fashion context, through implementation, go-live, and stabilization.
Working command of fashion-specific constructs, including article master variants and color/size grids, season and collection management, allocation and assortment runs, stock protection, and wholesale order management with delivery windows and value-added services.
Retail and wholesale process experience across merchandising and allocation, article and inventory management, store replenishment, warehouse management, order management, fulfillment, and EDI.
Demonstrated management of system integrator and vendor performance against statements of work, including rejecting deliverables that do not meet criteria.
Experience coordinating distributed, offshore, and contract development resources.
Demonstrated experience recovering at-risk technical execution, including replanning efforts with delivery leadership.
Credibility with functional leadership, program governance, and integrator leadership, including the ability to hold a position on delivery matters with senior stakeholders when it is unwelcome.
Ability to travel for project work up to 20%.

Nice To Haves

Footwear, apparel, or accessories brand experience, or experience in an adjacent sector with comparable retail and wholesale models, such as sporting goods, outdoor, or specialty retail with both channels.
Experience with EDI and IDoc integration, warehouse management interfaces, and order management.
Experience with cloud platforms, modern integration tooling, CI/CD, and DevOps practices.
PMP, SAFe, Scrum, or comparable certification.

Responsibilities

Own the technical approach, engineering standards, build quality, and technical fitness for release across the SAP portfolio.
Coordinate development resources across SAP, integration, and application teams, including capacity outside the organization, to deliver committed work.
Stage builds, resolve technical trade-offs, and drive blockers to resolution with appropriate technical owners.
Review and challenge estimates, integration approaches, data mappings, environment plans, and implementation sequencing before commitments are made.
Ensure designs, data flows, integrations, controls, and operational impacts receive appropriate review, and document technical decisions in the plan.
Provide level-of-effort estimates and technical resource requirements as inputs to portfolio planning; maintain accurate technical status.
Define requirements for additional ABAP, BTP, or integration capacity, and contract and manage that work to delivery in alignment with the SAP technical architect’s design direction.
Lead engineering and stabilization across S/4HANA and connected Retail and Supply Chain platforms, including merchandising, allocation and assortment, inventory, replenishment, warehouse management, logistics, procurement, order fulfillment, EDI, and integrations.
Drive post-launch defects, enhancements, and optimization to resolution and support transition from implementation to ongoing product and enhancement operations.
Own enhancement backlog sequencing, release cadence, regression discipline, platform health, operational performance, and the annual SAP release and maintenance cycle.
Provide hands-on technical leadership through design and code review, resolving problems the team cannot, unblocking critical-path work, prototyping, and raising engineering standards.
Assess system integrator, contractor, and vendor work; accept or reject deliverables against acceptance criteria and evidence of completed outcomes.
Challenge partner estimates, staffing assumptions, sequencing, and recovery plans, and invoke statements of work when required by performance.
Translate statements of work into measurable deliverables, milestones, and acceptance criteria; coordinate commercial concerns with IT leadership and Procurement.
Identify application-management agreement capability and coverage gaps and work with IT leadership and Procurement to address them.
Lead, coach, and develop a small team of experienced specialists; establish clear ownership of domains, commitments, documentation, and issue resolution.
Ensure each team member owns a defined domain and serves as a direct business contact; support workforce planning, role definition, recruiting, and onboarding.
Own technical readiness assessments for releases and implementations, covering environments, integration testing, data conversion and reconciliation, defects, cutover, rollback, and support transition.
Confirm operational support, documentation, monitoring, and ownership requirements before release; coordinate technical resources for hypercare and drive stabilization actions to closure.
Partner with the assigned project manager: provide technical feasibility, estimates, resource plans, and technical dependencies, risks, and assumptions; remain involved with the business in scope definition, requirements, and solution playback.
Make delegated decisions on technical approach and standards within architecture, technical trade-offs and risk disposition, work allocation and prioritization, level of effort and technical resource plans, and acceptance or rejection of vendor deliverables.
Provide technical readiness recommendations for cutover and release; escalate designs that cannot be delivered against commitments rather than working around the architecture direction.
Own the SAP side of retail processes and integrations to store systems, digital commerce, and DTC platforms, while not owning those platforms.
Own Retail and Supply Chain delivery and work directly with Finance counterparts on points of intersection such as financial postings, costing, intercompany, and period-close dependencies.