Forward Deployed Engineering Manager

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. In this role, you lead and grow a team of senior engineers, data scientists, and AI practitioners embedded directly within SAP's most strategic customer environments. As a Director-level people manager, you are accountable for the performance, development, and wellbeing of your team — while also owning the delivery outcomes, technical quality, and customer impact of forward-deployed engagements at scale. You operate at the intersection of people leadership, technical strategy, and customer excellence. In This Role, You Will: - Lead, coach, and develop a team of senior engineers and AI practitioners, fostering a high-performance culture grounded in accountability, collaboration, and continuous growth. - Own team performance, including goal setting, feedback cycles, career development, and talent planning. - Drive delivery excellence across multiple forward-deployed customer engagements, ensuring outcomes align with agreed success. - Set technical direction and architectural guardrails for the team, in partnership with Chief Experts and technical leads. - Act as a senior escalation point for delivery risks, team challenges, and customer concerns — resolving issues with clarity and decisiveness. - Build strong relationships with senior customer stakeholders and SAP leadership. - Attract, hire, and onboard top engineering talent across AI, data, and software engineering disciplines. - Champion engineering best practices, responsible AI principles, and a culture of learning and innovation within the team. What You Bring: - Proven experience leading and managing senior engineering teams, with a track record of building high-performing, inclusive, and motivated engineering organizations. - Strong technical background in AI, machine learning, data engineering, or software engineering. - Deep understanding of forward-deployed or customer-embedded delivery models, and experience managing complex, high-stakes customer engagements. - Proven ability to work in an Agentic AI context — understanding and shaping how AI agents are applied within teams and customer environments. - Familiarity with SAP AI technologies and enterprise AI deployment realities is a strong advantage.