Expert Reliability Engineer

SAP SE; Reston (VA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

SAP SE is seeking an Expert Reliability Engineer (SRE) for the Sovereign Cloud Shared Management Services team in the Technology and Engineering unit. You will lead reliability and security across production and non-production environments, owning critical areas from IAM and secrets management to multi-cloud observability and incident response.

You will mentor engineers, establish standards for SLAs/SLOs/SLIs, and drive scalable, secure platform design.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of DevOps and/or SRE experience.
• 7+ years leading engineering projects and cross-functional teams.
• Deep mastery of SRE principles for distributed platforms.
• Experience with modern monitoring: Grafana, Prometheus.
• Security-focused roles with strong foundation skills.
• End-to-end implementation experience.
• People management or staff-level leadership experience.
• Expert Linux/Unix, networking, and large-scale cloud ops.
• Proficient IaC and scripting (Ansible, Terraform, Bash, Python, PowerShell).
• AI-driven incident response and anomaly correlation expertise.

Responsibilities

• Lead a globally distributed team to set standards and best practices in reliability and security.
• Own design, implementation, and refinement of SRE frameworks (SLAs, SLOs, SLIs).
• Drive AI-assisted incident response and automated runbook execution.
• Ensure backup and disaster recovery drills are robust and ready for global scale.
• Collaborate with Sovereign Cloud operations, engineering, and hyperscaler partners.

Skills

Ambiguity management

Collaborative mindset

Strategic thinking

Problem solving

Cross-functional leadership

DevOps & SRE fundamentals

Security awareness

Communication skills

Mentoring engineers

Architecting reliability

Tools

Grafana

Prometheus

CI/CD pipelines

Git/Source control

IaC (Ansible, Terraform)

Bash/Python/Powershell

Linux/Unix administration

Security tooling

Identity federation

Job description

We help the world run better

At SAP, we keep it simple: you bring your best to us, and we'll bring out the best in you. We're builders touching over 20 industries and 80% of global commerce, and we need your unique talents to help shape what's next. The work is challenging – but it matters. You'll find a place where you can be yourself, prioritize your wellbeing, and truly belong. What's in it for you? Constant learning, skill growth, great benefits, and a team that wants you to grow and succeed.

***** Due to the potentially classified nature of our work,your willingness is requiredto subject yourself to a governmental security clearance process******

YOUR FUTURE ROLE

We are looking for an Expert Reliability Engineer (SRE) within the Shared Management Services (SMS) group in the Technology and Engineering unit of SAP Sovereign Cloud organization.

In this role, you will join the Technology and Engineering team as a Site Reliability Engineer focused on securing and scaling the foundational platform that underpins SAP Sovereign Cloud. You will work alongside a globally distributed team of highly motivated engineers responsible for the design, development, deployment, and lifecycle management of the Sovereign Cloud Shared Management Services (SMS) platform, with a mandate that spans both operational reliability and platform security.

As an expert Site Reliability Engineer, you will shoulder a shared ownership of the reliability, security, and operational excellence of production and non-production environments within Sovereign Cloud. It is expected that you will have extensive experience in all areas of a critical application administration stack spanning:

• source control (git)
• CI/CD platforms
• identity and access management
• secrets management
• container orchestration
• network security infrastructure
• full-stack observability tooling across multi-cloud environments.

You will lead an experienced team of globally distributed engineers in setting standards and best practices across responsibility areas including:

• Code reviews
• Agentic coding (AI) security best practices
• Agentic coding workflows and skill development
• AI-assisted incident response
• Unit test coverage
• Functional test coverage
• etc

You will treat security as a first-class reliability concern: hardening identity and access management, secrets management, and supply chain integrity are as central to this role as uptime and incident response.

You will identify and close mission-critical capability gaps, define disciplined and standardized operational processes, and help the team navigate trade-offs across deployment plans, infrastructure investments, and day-to-day operational decisions. You will own and continuously improve backup and disaster recovery drills, ensuring the platform is failure-ready at global scale.

You will work closely with Sovereign Cloud operations and engineering teams, regional counterparts, and hyperscaler provider partners.

WHAT YOU BRING

• Ability to manage ambiguities while being innovative and collaborative
• Extensive technology skills and the willingness to learn new topics quickly
• Problem-solving, presentation, communication, and interpersonal skills
• Ability to think strategically, delivering projects and work cross-organizationally
• Knowledge of SAP and the SAP solution portfolio
• Cultural awareness, intercultural competencies, and the ability to influence without formal authority
• Ability to build trusted relationships with key stakeholders
• Persistence, self-motivation, and willingness to work under pressure
• Proven ability to work in cross-functional teams
• Ability to lead and mentor junior engineers in setting and maintaining DevOps and SRE best practices

WORK EXPERIENCE

• 10+ years of experience in DevOps and/or SRE engineering
• 7+ years of experience with a successful track record of leading engineering projects and cross-functional program teams
• Deep mastery of SRE principles as they apply to a globally distributed, mission-critical platforms
• Advanced Experience in architecture, engineering, and deployment of modern monitoring tooling such as Grafana, Promethius
• Background in security or security-adjacent roles with a proven record of strong security foundational skills
• Proven track record in end-to-end implementation initiatives
• Experience in people management or staff level technical leadership
• Expert level knowledge of Linux/Unix administration, networking fundamentals, and operating large-scale distributed cloud environments
• Advanced proficiency with IaC, scripting, and automation such as Ansible, Terraform, Bash, Python, Powershell, CI/CD
• Deep expertise with modern access control, authentication standards and identity federation at an enterprise scale.
• Proven experience architecting AI-driven incident response workflows that reduce mean time to detection and resolution through automated anomaly correlation, intelligent alert triage, and LLM-assisted runbook execution
• Proven ability to own the design, implementation, and continuous refinement of SRE reliability frameworks, including SLAs, SLOs, and SLIs, ensuring alignment between platform performance, business commitments, and engineering priorities

Bring out your best

SAP innovations help more than four hundred thousand customers worldwide work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively. Originally known for leadership in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, SAP has evolved to become a market leader in end-to-end business application software and related services for database, analytics, intelligent technologies, and experience management. As a cloud company with two hundred million users and more than one hundred thousand employees worldwide, we are purpose-driven and future-focused, with a highly collaborative team ethic and commitment to personal development. Whether connecting global industries, people, or platforms, we help ensure every challenge gets the solution it deserves. At SAP, you can bring out your best.

We win with inclusion

SAP’s culture of inclusion, focus on health and well-being, and flexible working models help ensure that everyone – regardless of background – feels included and can run at their best. At SAP, we believe we are made stronger by the unique capabilities and qualities that each person brings to our company, and we invest in our employees to inspire confidence and help everyone realize their full potential. We ultimately believe in unleashing all talent and creating a better world.

SAP is committed to the values of Equal Employment Opportunity and provides accessibility accommodations to applicants with physical and/or mental disabilities. If you are interested in applying for employment with SAP and are in need of accommodation or special assistance to navigate our website or to complete your application, please send an e‑mail with your request to Recruiting Operations Team: [e-mail].

For SAP employees: Only permanent roles are eligible for the SAP Employee Referral Program , according to the eligibility rules set in the