VP of Architecture - Agentic Experiences

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.

What you’ll build

You will define and drive the reference architecture for SAP’s AI-powered products, enabling secure, scalable agentic capabilities across teams and portfolios and accelerating enterprise adoption of AI at scale.

• Own the architectural vision, principles, and guardrails for AI-first capabilities, including agent orchestration, runtime hosting, model gateways, retrieval/grounding, and enterprise integrations
• Define reference architectures for agentic runtimes, tool integration, policy enforcement, identity, and secure data access in production
• Partner with security and engineering to implement threat modeling, runtime isolation, audit trails, and observability for agent actions
• Drive non-functional requirements (reliability, performance, cost efficiency, scalability) and establish SLOs and validation approaches
• Enable predictable delivery through architectural reviews, decision records, and technical mentoring across distributed teams
• Establish and enforce architectural standards and governance to ensure consistency and quality across portfolios
• Embed operational excellence via MLOps, LLMOps, and AgentOps practices (evaluation, monitoring, drift detection, safe rollout/rollback)

What you bring

You are an architecture leader operating at the intersection of AI innovation and enterprise-scale systems, with a track record of defining and governing production-grade architectures.

• 15+ years in software engineering and architecture for enterprise platforms, including 5+ years leading architecture at principal or distinguished level
• Deep expertise in distributed systems and cloud-native design, with strong knowledge of modern AI architectures (LLM serving, RAG, agentic orchestration)
• Experience building production AI systems with strong observability, reliability engineering, and cost controls
• Strong AI security background (identity, access, data governance, prompt-injection defenses, policy-as-code, auditability)
• Proven ability to influence technical direction across organizations and mentor senior engineers and architects
• Excellent executive communication skills, with the ability to drive decisions under ambiguity
• Hands-on architectural credibility, with the ability to go deep when needed and guide teams from concept to production

Where you belong

As VP of Architecture – Agentic Experiences, you will join a global architecture community that values deep technical thinking, hands-on leadership, and inclusive collaboration—working across teams to set direction, raise engineering standards, and shape the future of enterprise AI.

*Role open to candidates local to Palo Alto, CA & Bellevue, WA

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.

Compensation Range Transparency: 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 annual combined range for this position is 274300-609200USD. 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. Please reference this link for a summary of SAP benefits and eligibility requirements: SAP North America Benefits.

We are ethical and compliant
Our leadership credo: Do what’s right. Make SAP better for generations to come. We believe that great leadership extends far beyond the mere pursuit of business goals. We value and foster leadership that is driven with purpose and integrity. Our leaders are role models who uphold SAP’s values and shape SAP’s culture of integrity, by demonstrating and championing ethical and compliant behavior towards all stakeholders.

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: 451054 | Work Area: Software-Design and Development | Expected Travel: 0 - 10% | Career Status: Executive | Employment Type: Regular Full Time | Additional Locations: #LI-Hybrid

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