Principal Development Architect (m/f/d) - SAP Business Data Cloud Technology Office

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.

Summary

We’re looking for a visionary Principal Development Architect to join SAP’s Business Data Cloud Technology Office — a central team driving the future of SAP’s data management and intelligent enterprise strategy. This is a high‑impact, cross‑organizational role where you will help define the architecture of SAP’s next‑generation cloud and data services, shaping how data and AI power business outcomes across SAP’s portfolio. You will work alongside some of the most experienced architects in the industry, influencing product direction across SAP, defining architectural standards, and enabling development teams to deliver scalable, AI‑ready data products at enterprise scale.

What You'll Do

• Define and evolve the current and future architecture for the Business Data Cloud & Integration (BDC&I) platform and services, with a strong focus on AI‑enabled, data‑driven architectures.
• Work hands‑on with leading‑edge technologies, including modern data platforms, lakehouse architectures, data fabrics, and AI‑driven analytics.
• Actively collaborate with internal stakeholders and business partners to understand customer scenarios, translate needs into architectural concepts, and align ideas across units and the wider SAP organization.
• Drive architectural concepts from strategy to execution by building the organizational structures, processes, and networks required for broad adoption across development teams, in close partnership with product management.
• Serve as a spearhead of the development organization, embedding within teams to drive and align architecture topics across SAP, including participation in SAP’s central architecture alignment boards.
• Lead architecture and technology strategy from definition into real project execution, working across distributed teams within SAP BDC&I and Line‑of‑Business (LoB) development organizations.
• Enable and foster LoB adoption of data products, recognizing that the success of the Business Data Cloud depends on scalable, high‑quality, and AI‑ready data offerings delivered by the LoBs.
• Champion AI adoption and AI‑assisted development practices, helping teams responsibly leverage AI to improve productivity, quality, and innovation while meeting SAP’s enterprise standards.

What you bring

AI & Intelligent Systems

• A strong AI adoption mindset, with the ability to identify, evaluate, and scale AI use cases that create tangible business value within enterprise data platforms.
• Experience leveraging AI‑assisted development tools and practices to increase development velocity, code quality, and architectural consistency, while understanding governance, security, and compliance implications.
• Knowledge of agentic orchestration concepts, including coordinating AI agents, tools, and workflows across complex system landscapes.
• Experience in or strong understanding of agentic engineering, applying software engineering best practices (modularity, observability, lifecycle management, scalability) to AI‑driven and autonomous systems.
• Proven ability to leverage AI technologies for data management, analytics, and SAP Business AI, including contributions to shared technical building blocks.

Data Engineering & Cloud Architecture

• Deep expertise in cloud‑based data platforms, analytics, data management, and data integration technologies, including lakehouse architectures and data fabric concepts.
• Hands‑on experience with data engineering foundations such as scalable data pipelines, Spark‑based processing, and object store technologies.
• Strong background in data integration across SAP and non‑SAP data sources, data lakes, and enterprise applications.
• Established track record as a senior architect working with analytics and data management engineering teams, including leadership in large‑scale data warehousing initiatives.
• Practical experience operating cloud‑scale services in production, with a solid understanding of scalability, resilience, and operational excellence.

SAP Data & Analytics Ecosystem

• Deep familiarity with the SAP data and analytics ecosystem, including SAP HANA Cloud, SAP Datasphere, SAP Analytics Cloud, and SAP BTP‑based data platform approaches.
• Experience integrating SAP and non‑SAP data to enable advanced analytics, planning and AI scenarios, as well thrive for master data management excellence.
• Understanding of SAP data models, performance considerations, security, and governance best practices.
• Building enterprise readiness products, systems and landscapes.

Leadership, Communication & Mindset

• Proven ability to quickly adapt to new environments, balance architectural trade‑offs, and combine pragmatic delivery with long‑term strategic thinking and drive long term success.
• Integrating different teams, observation points and use cases from product management towards one common long term goal and influence road map planning.
• Excellent presentation, communication, and public‑speaking skills, with the ability to influence and align stakeholders at C‑suite level and above.
• Strong interpersonal and leadership skills to drive complex product‑ and technology‑related discussions internally and externally to customers and partners as well on stage.
• High self‑motivation, a positive can‑do attitude, and the ability to thrive in fast‑paced, ambiguous environments.
• Strong customer and partner orientation, with experience working in large‑scale software development and architectural initiatives.
• Degree in Computer Science or a related field, with senior level experience of 7+ years.

Meet your SAP BDC&I Development Team

The SAP BDC&I Development organization brings together the powerful capabilities of SAP HANA Cloud, SAP Datasphere, SAP Analytics Cloud, and application‑specific data platform approaches into a harmonized, end‑to‑end ecosystem. Our mission is to unlock the full information value chain—enabling customers to understand the past, predict the future, and confidently drive decisions based on trusted, AI‑ready data through entirely new cloud services and experiences.