Application Manager – SAP Platform

Ask Athena; Mansfield (MA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Ask Athena seeks an experienced SAP Platform Manager to own the technical operations, governance, and evolution of our SAP landscape, focusing on SAP Basis and the RISE with SAP engagement. You will partner with IT, business, hyperscalers, and implementation partners to ensure a secure, stable, and scalable platform.

The role requires 15+ years of SAP experience, hands-on SAP Basis expertise, and proven exposure to RISE with SAP. This hybrid role is on-site 4 days and remote 1 day per week.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of SAP experience with emphasis on Basis and platform operations.
• Experience with RISE with SAP and S/4HANA Cloud/Private Edition.
• Strong collaboration across IT, business, and external partners.

Responsibilities

• Manage SAP platform strategy, roadmap, and operations across ECC, S4, BI, SAP HANA, and integration components.
• Own day-to-day platform operations including availability, performance, capacity, monitoring, backup/recovery, HA, and DR.
• Govern and coordinate with SAP RISE, hyperscalers, and providers, including SLAs and change windows.
• Oversee installations, upgrades, migrations, ensuring alignment with clean-core and RISE guidelines.
• Ensure platform security, compliance, and audit readiness.
• Partner with functional, development, and architecture teams to design scalable solutions.
• Coordinate with offshore delivery teams and drive cost efficiency.
• Establish and maintain standards, runbooks, SOPs, inventories.
• Drive incident, problem, change management and root-cause analysis.
• Escalation point for critical SAP issues with stakeholders.
• Support planning and execution of SAP transformation programs.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to support integrated processes.

Skills

SAP Basis Administration

Platform Operations

RISE with SAP

S/4HANA Cloud

Leadership/Stakeholder Management

Security/Compliance

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related field

Job description

We are seeking an experienced SAP Platform Manager to own the technical operations, governance, and evolution of our SAP landscape, with a primary focus on SAP Basis and our RISE landscape with SAP engagement. This role will act as the primary liaison between our internal IT, business stakeholders, SAP, hyperscalers, and implementation partners to ensure a secure, stable, and scalable SAP platform. The ideal candidate has 15+ years of SAP experience, strong SAP Basis and infrastructure background, and proven exposure to RISE with SAP (S/4HANA Cloud, Private Edition or equivalent) and working with cross-regional teams.

This is a hybrid role; we work on site 4 days and remotely 1 day, weekly.

• Manage the overall SAP platform strategy, roadmap, and operations across ECC, S4, BI, SAP HANA, integration components, and related tools
• Own day-to-day platform operations including system availability, performance, capacity, monitoring, backup/recovery, high availability, and disaster recovery.
• Govern and coordinate all activities with SAP RISE, hyperscalers, and external providers, including service reviews, SLAs, escalations, and change windows.
• Oversee SAP system installations, upgrades, support packs, migrations, and technical projects, ensuring alignment with SAP’s clean-core and RISE guidelines.
• Ensure platform security, compliance, and audit readiness (user and role administration, system hardening, vulnerability remediation, and adherence to the RISE shared responsibility model).
• Partner with SAP functional, development, and architecture teams to design robust, scalable solutions and ensure technical readiness for major initiatives and releases.
• Coordinate with offshore delivery team: define scope, allocate work, monitor quality, and implement continuous improvement for operational excellence and cost efficiency.
• Establish and maintain standards, procedures, and documentation for SAP operations, including runbooks, SOPs, and environment inventories.
• Drive incident, problem, and change management processes for the SAP platform, including root cause analysis and long-term remediation.
• Act as a key escalation point for critical SAP issues, working closely with SAP, infrastructure, security, and business stakeholders to restore service and prevent recurrence.
• Support planning and execution of SAP transformation programs
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to support integrated business processes and solutions.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related field
• 15+ years of overall SAP experience with a strong focus on SAP Basis, platform operations, and technical architecture.
• Significant, hands‑on experience with RISE with SAP and SAP S/4 HANA Cloud, Private Edition
• Understanding of SAP’s roles and responsibilities, hyperscaler infrastructure, and shared responsibility model.
• Proven experience leading SAP Basis/platform teams, including managing offshore or distributed delivery models.
• Deep technical expertise in SAP Basis administration: system copies, client strategy, performance tuning, transport management, monitoring tools, backup/restore, and high availability/disaster recovery.
• Strong understanding of SAP HANA, S/4HANA, and integration technologies.
• Familiarity with SAP security and authorizations concepts, as well as collaboration with security and audit teams.
• Experience working closely with SAP, hyperscalers, and system integrators on cloud migrations, upgrades, and critical incidents.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders, including presenting platform status, risks, and roadmaps to IT and business leadership.
• Strong leadership, stakeholder management, and vendor management skills, with a track record of driving operational excellence and continuous improvement