This leadership role oversees SAP s Retail Engineering organization and builds upon a legacy of excellence in enterprise grade retail systems. It is responsible for defining the technical direction and execution strategy for SAP s S/4 Retail, Demand & Inventory Planning and Customer Activity Repository (CAR) portfolios.
The role goes beyond pure technology; it must blend inter location leadership, product design, software development and delivery management to deliver intelligent, global retail solutions. Managing globally distributed teams requires strategies to handle time zone friction, cultural differences and knowledge transfer, and leaders must balance technical depth with cross cultural communication to keep teams aligned. SAP s CAR cloud products unify customer activity, POS and product data into a central repository, giving retailers a holistic view of customer behaviour and real time inventory visibility.
SAP s S/4HANA Retail solution connects processes across the value chain and embeds AI, analytics and intelligent process automation, while integrated demand planning and inventory optimisation use statistical models and machine learning to forecast demand and balance inventory targets. The Head of Engineering must harness these cloud products to build scalable, AI ready retail systems.
Key Responsibilities
-
Lead a globally distributed engineering organization
and cultivate a culture of trust, empowerment and technical excellence. Leading geographically dispersed teams calls for asynchronous workflows, rotational scheduling and cross location events to manage time zone differences and promote cultural integration. -
Drive product vision and design alignment across locations.
The Head of Engineering will work with Product Management, Design and User Research to ensure that retail solutions are intuitive, accessible and visually appealing. They will help shape product vision and principles in partnership with product leaders so that teams build products customers love while meeting business objectives. -
Ensure engineering excellence, architecture and development.
The engineering team is responsible for translating product vision into reality: breaking down requirements, estimating timelines, architecting the product and ensuring quality and security. The Head of Engineering will provide technical direction across S/4 Retail modules (merchandise management, supply chain, in store operations and pricing), CAR (unified customer activity, real time inventory and demand forecasting), and Demand & Inventory Planning cloud products (machine learning assisted demand planning and multistage inventory optimisation). -
Oversee product development and delivery management.
This role will coordinate resources, timelines and budgets in collaboration with product managers, stakeholders and executives to ensure successful delivery. It will institute lean, outcome oriented practices to reduce waste, improve quality and foster continuous improvement. The Head of Engineering will implement structured workflows for distributed teams, including clear hand off protocols and cross location technical reviews. -
Champion cross location and multicultural collaboration.
The Head of Engineering will empower local teams to define strategy, develop and operate products, build full stack teams across regions and manage dependencies through follow the sun models where appropriate. They will invest in cross location training and cultural education to build trust and optimise communication cadences for asynchronous collaboration. -
Promote continuous innovation and AI readiness.
SAP s retail suite integrates AI, analytics and intelligent process automation. The engineering leader will ensure that cloud products are AI ready and support SAP s Suite First and AI First strategies. They will integrate demand sensing and real time POS data into planning solutions, leverage CAR s predictive power and ensure that data cloud products support machine learning workloads. -
Establish engineering standards, automation and quality gates.
As engineering organizations scale, standardized architectures, documentation and automated quality gates are critical. The Head of Engineering will drive adoption of microservices, domain driven design and event driven architectures, implement CI/CD pipelines with automated testing and deployment, and define clear KPIs for code quality and performance. -
Hire, mentor and develop engineering talent.
Responsibilities include recruiting, structuring teams, coaching and managing performance. The leader will design career paths for engineering and design roles and nurture a high trust environment where diverse perspectives are valued.
Minimum Qualifications
-
Education & experience:
Bachelor s or Master s degree in computer science, engineering or a related field. At least 10 years of software engineering experience with 5+ years in engineering leadership. -
Demonstrated cross location leadership:
Evidence of leading large, multicultural engineering teams. Understanding of time zone coordination, cultural awareness and knowledge transfer strategies. -
Enterprise retail expertise:
Deep understanding of SAP s retail solutions including S/4 Retail (in store operations, customer centric merchandise management, omnichannel supply chain and pricing), Demand & Inventory Planning (statistical and machine learning forecasting), and Customer Activity Repository (unified customer activity, real time inventory visibility and demand forecasting). Experience integrating these systems with cloud native architectures and data cloud products. -
Product design and user experience orientation:
Ability to work with design leaders to create environments where teams deliver intuitive, user centric products and to translate business objectives into product vision and design principles. -
Delivery and program management:
Proven track record of overseeing resources, timelines and budgets and ensuring successful delivery in collaboration with product management and stakeholders. Ability to implement lean processes and continuous improvement. -
Technical acumen:
Expertise in large scale distributed systems, microservice architectures, API design, data cloud products and cloud technologies. Ability to provide hands on technical guidance and architectural oversight. -
Communication skills:
Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to lead and inspire diverse teams and articulate complex technical concepts to business stakeholders.
Preferred Qualifications
-
Experience scaling global engineering organizations:
Familiarity with cross location agile operating models, follow the sun development and rotation programs that build cultural understanding and knowledge sharing. -
Deep knowledge of SAP technologies:
Experience with SAP S/4HANA Retail for merchandise management, CAR Applications Bundle, SAP Integrated Business Planning and related retail data models. Understanding of seasonality features, master data and pricing consistency across channels. -
Exposure to AI/ML and analytics:
Knowledge of demand sensing, machine learning forecasting and predictive analytics in retail planning. Experience deploying data pipelines that support advanced analytics and AI applications. -
Design and user research leadership:
Experience partnering with design leaders to define product vision, design strategy and evangelism. Ability to champion design maturity across engineering teams. -
Enterprise cloud and DevOps practices:
Familiarity with cloud native development, CI/CD, DevOps, infrastructure as code and automated quality gates.
