Senior Manager, SAP Applications & Engineering (Remote)

The Senior Manager, SAP Applications Engineering leads the engineering and functional team behind the SAP portfolio across Retail and Supply Chain — merchandising, allocation and assortment, article and inventory management, store replenishment, warehouse management, order management, procurement, EDI and the integrations that connect them. The role owns what is built and how it is built: technical approach, engineering standards, the development of the team, and the technical performance of the partners who build alongside it.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role. It requires enough depth in integration design, release and environment management, data conversion and defect resolution to challenge estimates, interrogate designs, and judge whether work presented as complete actually is — and enough leadership to build that capability into the team rather than supplying it personally. A project manager aligned to this portfolio by the IT PMO carries the plan, the cadence, delivery timing and communication with the business about dates, so this role can stay close to the technical work and to the team.

SAP is becoming the operating backbone for Retail, Supply Chain and Finance at Cole Haan. This role is created to establish engineering leadership inside the Go-to-Market Platforms organization, where until now there has been none below the Senior Director. The Senior Director holds business strategy, technology roadmap, SAP architecture, data and integration direction and AI enablement. This role holds the team, the technical execution and the partner capability beneath that direction. Alongside it, the IT PMO holds capacity planning, sequencing across the portfolio, delivery timing and communication with the business about dates, through a project manager aligned to this portfolio. The two are designed to work as a pair, and the boundary between them is written down below rather than left to be established informally. The role is being built with the structure around it, not expected to create that structure alone.

• Own the technical approach: how work is built, to what standard, by whom, and whether it is fit to release
• Coordinate development resource across SAP, integration and application teams — including capacity that sits outside this organization — to deliver committed work across Retail and Supply Chain
• Stage the build, resolve technical trade-offs, and drive blockers to resolution with the appropriate technical owners
• Apply direct technical depth to challenge estimates, integration approaches, data mappings, environment plans and implementation sequencing before work is committed
• Ensure designs, data flows, integrations, controls and operational impacts receive appropriate review, and that technical decisions are documented and reflected in the plan
• Provide level of effort and the technical resources required, as the input to portfolio planning. Own the accuracy of technical status: the project manager produces and distributes reporting, and this role answers for what it says
• Scale development capacity to the work. Where ABAP, BTP or integration build exceeds internal capacity, define the requirement, contract and manage that capacity to delivery — working to the design direction set by the SAP technical architect, and managing the contracted work rather than absorbing it

• Lead engineering and stabilization across S/4HANA and connected platforms — merchandising, allocation and assortment, article and inventory management, store replenishment, warehouse management, logistics, procurement, order fulfillment, EDI and integrations
• Manage dependencies across SAP, third-party platforms, enterprise data, infrastructure, security and business processes
• Drive post-launch defects, enhancements and optimization to resolution, and support the transition from implementation into an ongoing product and enhancement model
• Own these platforms as a standing responsibility beyond implementation: the enhancement backlog and its sequencing against business priority, release cadence and regression discipline, platform health and operational performance, and the annual cycle of SAP releases and maintenance

• This role is expected to work in the system, and the expectation is bounded by kind rather than by volume
• In scope: design and code review, solving the problems the team cannot, unblocking the critical path, prototyping, and raising the standard of what the team produces
• Not in scope: being carried on the plan as delivery capacity. Where this role becomes a named resource against committed work, the team loses its engineering leader and the development of the team stops. That trade is made deliberately and temporarily or not at all

• Judge the work of system integrators, contractors and software vendors. Accept or reject deliverables against acceptance criteria and evidence of completed outcomes, not percentage-complete reporting
• Challenge estimates, staffing assumptions, sequencing and recovery plans. Invoke the statement of work where performance requires it
• Translate statements of work into measurable deliverables, milestones and acceptance criteria, and coordinate commercial concerns with IT leadership and Procurement
• Own the capability and coverage gaps in the application management agreements. Where a contract carries functional capacity but no technical route, or where work falls between agreements, this role defines what is missing and works with IT leadership and Procurement to close it rather than absorbing the gap into the team or the architect

• Lead, coach and develop a small team of experienced specialists who have not had an engineering leader above them. Establish clear ownership of domains, commitments, documentation and issue resolution
• Ensure each team member owns a defined domain and is the named contact the business goes to for it — building direct business relationships rather than routing through a single point.
• Support workforce planning, role definition, recruiting and onboarding

• Own readiness assessment for releases and implementations: environments, integration testing, data conversion and reconciliation, defect resolution, cutover, rollback planning and support transition
• Confirm operational support, documentation, monitoring and ownership requirements are complete before release; coordinate technical resources for hypercare and drive stabilization actions to closure

A project manager aligned to this portfolio by the Director, IT PMO is an embedded partner, not an observer. The division is consistent:

• The project manager owns the when — capacity planning across proposed and committed work, sequencing against portfolio commitments, realistic delivery timing, risks, dependencies, status reporting, stage gates and communication with the business about dates, constraints and changes to commitments
• This role owns the what and the how — technical feasibility, solution approach, level of effort, the technical resources required, and the dependencies, risks and assumptions that bear on the plan
• Neither moves work out of a committed release, or changes what has been promised, without the other in the conversation
• This role and the team remain in the room with the business for scope definition, requirements and solution playback. The project manager convenes and records those sessions but does not attend in the team’s place

The following sit with this role, delegated by the Senior Director, Go-to-Market Platforms, and are exercised without seeking approval case by case:

• Technical approach and engineering standards within the architecture set by the Senior Director
• Acceptance or rejection of system integrator and vendor deliverables against agreed acceptance criteria
• Technical trade-offs within agreed architecture guardrails, and the disposition of technical risks — what is accepted, what is mitigated, and what is escalated
• Work allocation and prioritization across the SAP applications engineering team
• Level of effort and the technical resource plan. Delivery dates are set through portfolio planning on this role’s estimate; where the estimate is questioned, the basis for it is open to challenge and this role is expected to show it
• Technical readiness recommendation for cutover and release. The project manager runs the readiness gate and confirms that the delivery criteria are met. The go/no-go decision sits with the Senior Director, the VP, Information Technology and business sponsors

• This role owns what is built and how it is built — technical approach, engineering standards, and the team that delivers it. When it is delivered sits with the IT PMO. Why it is built, and the architecture it is built within, is set above the role
• The IT PMO owns enterprise delivery discipline, including demand intake, governance standards, stage gates, portfolio visibility, capacity planning, sequencing and delivery timing, through the project manager aligned to this portfolio
• This role owns technical execution, engineering standards, team capability, partner technical performance, implementation readiness, and the accuracy of technical status
• Design authority for integration in and out of SAP and for custom extension work sits with the SAP technical architect in the Go-to-Market Platforms organization. This role builds and delivers within that direction, is accountable for ensuring design review occurs, and escalates where a design cannot be delivered against the commitment rather than working around it
• Store systems, digital commerce platforms and DTC applications sit within the Digital / DTC organization. This role owns the SAP side of retail process and the integrations to those platforms, not the platforms themselves
• SAP Finance delivery sits with the Director, IT Finance in the Go-to-Market Platforms organization. This role owns Retail and Supply Chain delivery; where the two meet — financial postings, costing, intercompany and period close dependencies — the point of contact is direct rather than routed upward

• 8+ years in technical delivery, enterprise applications or a closely related technology role
• 3+ years leading technical teams, including senior individual contributors — with evidence of having developed people, not only directed work
• Hands-on depth in integration patterns, release and environment management, data migration and conversion, and defect triage — sufficient to challenge designs and estimates rather than relay them
• Hands-on delivery experience with SAP for apparel, footwear or accessories — S/4HANA Fashion (FMS), AFS, or S/4HANA Retail in a fashion context — through implementation, go-live and stabilization
• Working command of the fashion-specific constructs this business runs on: article master with variants and color/size grids, season and collection management, allocation and assortment run, stock protection, and wholesale order management including delivery windows and value-added services. Sufficient depth to interrogate a design, not simply recognize the terms
• Retail and wholesale process across merchandising and allocation, article and inventory management, store replenishment, warehouse management, order management, fulfillment and EDI
• Demonstrated management of system integrator and vendor performance against statements of work, including rejecting deliverables that did not meet criteria
• Experience coordinating distributed, offshore and contract development resource.
• Demonstrated experience recovering the technical execution that was at risk, including replanning efforts with delivery leadership
• Credibility with functional leadership, program governance and integrator leadership — able to hold a position with senior stakeholders and integrator management on delivery matters, including when the position is unwelcome

• Footwear, apparel or accessories brand experience; or an adjacent sector with a comparable retail and wholesale model — sporting goods, outdoor, or specialty retail carrying both channels
• EDI and IDoc integration, warehouse management interfaces, order management
• Cloud platforms, modern integration tooling, CI/CD and DevOps practice
• PMP, SAFe, Scrum or comparable certification
• Project-based travel up to 20%

Base Salary/Hourly Range: From $155,000 to $200,000 annually*

Bonus Eligibility: Yes, eligible for annual target bonus based on company and individual performance

Benefits Offered: Health Insurance, Dental Insurance, Vision Care, Health Savings Account with Employer Contribution, Flexible Spending Accounts, 401(k) Retirement Plan with Employer Matching Contributions, Short-Term Disability Insurance, Life Insurance, Vacation Time, Sick Time, Paid Parental Leave, Adoption Assistance Program, Charitable Matching Gifts Program, Holidays and Cole Haan Discounts

Paid Time Off: Paid vacation days starting at 120 hours, 11 paid company and personal holidays, 3 volunteer days

Sick Leave: Eligible non-exempt employees earn one hour of sick time for every 30 hours worked. Eligible exempt full-time employees earn 2.67 hours of sick time each bi-weekly pay period

*Rate of pay dependent upon candidates’ relevant skills, experience, and location