Principal Development Architect

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.

What do you think about being part of an innovative, dynamic and collaborative development environment, helping world-class enterprises to solve their most complex business challenges, blaze disruptive new trails and bring their company’s vision to life?

At Customer Industry Solutions (CIS), with cloud and AI mindset, embedded in architecture and technology, we will Productize and scale Industry AI as repeatable, end-to-end agentic AI applications across industries

In our team, we believe people are the essential part of what we do; we believe they can change, and they will evolve. Our environment is safe to let people be themselves and find their strengths to contribute to the overall team and customers we attend.

We are looking for an experienced AI Development Architect to design, develop, and lead the implementation of innovative Industry AI solutions. The ideal candidate combines strong software engineering and architecture expertise with hands-on experience in Generative AI, machine learning, cloud platforms, APIs, and enterprise application development.

The AI Development Architect will work closely with our customers, product managers, data scientists, developers, User experience designers and enterprise architects to translate business challenges into scalable, ethical, secure, and production-ready AI solutions.

We are looking for someone who is passionate about software development and technology, someone who wants to learn and stretch beyond self-limits every day, someone who is willing to work on challenging projects that changes our customer’s worlds and someone who enjoys working on meaningful projects. Who values working with diverse teams in an inclusive and empathic way.

What you'll do

• Ability to articulate AI concepts and cloud architecture solution options to the product owners and product architecture work group.
• Lead the development of AI applications from proof of concept through production deployment.
• Define the technical architecture and development strategy for AI and Generative AI solutions
• Design scalable architectures integrating LLMs, AI services, APIs, enterprise applications, databases, and cloud platforms.
• Design solutions using techniques such as RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), prompt engineering, embeddings, vector databases, agents, AI orchestration, and model integration.
• Ensure AI solutions meet enterprise requirements for security, scalability, reliability, maintainability, and compliance.
• Be actively involved in the preparation, conceptualization, feasibility studies, realization and Go Live of customer implementation projects.
• Assist in the development of the overall project plan (scoping process) as well as individual work plans; acting as liaison with client for troubleshooting (investigates, analyses, and solves software problems).
• Collaborate with developers to establish coding standards, code reviews, development patterns, CI/CD practices, and reusable components.
• Provide technical leadership and mentoring to software engineers and AI developers.
• Advanced coding skills with strong focus on quality and completeness.
• Stay current with emerging developments in Generative AI, LLMs, AI agents, cloud technologies, and software architecture.
• Work within a global team on international development projects.

Success Criteria

Success in this role means:

• Turning business opportunities into scalable AI solutions that deliver measurable value.
• Ability to establish reusable architecture patterns, accelerate AI development,
• Enabling development teams to build high-quality solutions and ensure that AI capabilities can be securely integrated into the enterprise technology landscape.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

• Be exposed to the latest technologies and work with world-class developers who will take your professional skills to the next level.
• Learn how continuous integration and DevOps works in a global development environment.
• Be part of a globally distributed group that has an enormous impact in the Enterprise Software industry on a global scale.
• Work in an environment that fosters feedback, autonomy and decentralized decision-making creating a culture of innovation, diversity and empathy.

What you bring

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field required.
• 5+ years of software development or solution architecture experience, with good experience designing enterprise applications.
• Advanced experience in one or more of those technologies: Java or Node, Python, package managers, REST APIs, Unit Tests, Databases, at least one Cloud Platform (SAP BTP, AWS, GCP, Azure), Kubernetes, Git, CI/CD, SQL.
• Strong understanding of Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs).
• Experience with REST APIs, microservices, event-driven architectures, and cloud-native development.
• Strong knowledge of databases, data modeling.
• Experience with cloud platforms such as SAP BTP is a plus.
• Knowledge of AI security, responsible AI, data privacy, and model governance
• Advanced or fluent in English (French is a plus).
• Customer interaction skills, ability to prioritize software requirements, identify reusability and hence provide acceptable work-around to customers.
• Self-motivated, open minded, resourceful, agile and pragmatic.
• Ability to proactively resolve problems focusing on teamwork, results, and people.
• Ability to act as a team lead and or Workstream Lead.

WORK EXPERIENCE

• Requires 5+ years Professional experience in software development, ideally on customer facing projects.
• Experience with Generative AI and/or Machine Learning
• Previous experience with agile development methodologies is highly valued.
• Software quality assurance and test methodologies.
• Experience in Cloud Foundry is a plus.
• Experience with DevOps methodologies and CI/CD is a plus.
• Experience with cloud native solutions is a plus.

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: Careers@sap.com.

For SAP employees: Only permanent roles are eligible for the SAP Employee Referral Program, according to the eligibility rules set in the SAP Referral Policy. Specific conditions may apply for roles in Vocational Training.

Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their age, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, et al), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, or disability, in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local legal requirements.

SAP believes the value of pay transparency contributes towards an honest and supportive culture and is a significant step toward demonstrating SAP’s commitment to pay equity. SAP provides the annualized compensation range inclusive of base salary and variable incentive target for the career level applicable to the posted role. The targeted combined range for this position is 144600-322500. The actual amount to be offered to the successful candidate will be within that range, dependent upon the key aspects of each case which may include education, skills, experience, scope of the role, location, etc. as determined through the selection process. Any SAP variable incentive includes a targeted dollar amount, and any actual payout amount is dependent on company and personal performance. A summary of benefits and eligibility requirements can be found by clicking this link: www.SAPNorthAmericaBenefits.com.

Due to the nature of the role, which involves global interactions with SAP entities, as well as with employees and stakeholders in Canada, functional proficiency in English is required for positions based in the Quebec.

AI Usage in the Recruitment Process

For information on the responsible use of AI in our recruitment process, please refer to our Guidelines for Ethical Usage of AI in the Recruiting Process.

Please note that any violation of these guidelines may result in disqualification from the hiring process.

Requisition ID: 459196 | Work Area: Software-Design and Development | Expected Travel: 0 - 30% | Career Status: Professional | Employment Type: Regular Full Time | Additional Locations: #LI-Hybrid