Top 12 SAP Architect Skills to Put on Your Resume

In today's crowded job market, a standout SAP Architect blends deep platform knowledge with architectural vision and pragmatic people skills. Put the right skills up front and the story gets sharper: you tame complex SAP landscapes and turn them into engines of business outcomes.

SAP Architect Skills

1. SAP HANA
2. SAP Fiori
3. SAP S/4HANA
4. SAP BW/4HANA
5. SAP Cloud Platform
6. SAP Leonardo
7. SAP ABAP
8. SAP BusinessObjects
9. SAP PI/PO
10. SAP Solution Manager
11. SAP NetWeaver
12. SAP ECC Migration

1. SAP HANA

SAP HANA is an in-memory, columnar, relational database platform built for speed. It powers transactional and analytical workloads side by side, enabling real-time processing, simplified architecture, and leaner data models.

Why It's Important

HANA matters because real-time changes everything: faster decisions, tighter processes, and architectures that scale without lugging around needless complexity.

How to Improve SAP HANA Skills

Focus on the stack end to end—design through operations—and squeeze latency out wherever it hides.

1. Right-size infrastructure: Use certified hardware or cloud instances sized for memory-intensive workloads. Plan for NUMA awareness and fast storage for logs.

2. Model smartly: Favor calculation views and pushdown. Prune data with partitioning, data aging, and tiering; avoid unnecessary materialization.

3. Tune queries: Analyze plans with PlanViz, refactor heavy SQL, and prefer set-based logic over loops. Watch joins, cardinalities, and predicates.

4. Watch the cockpit: Monitor CPU, memory, column store compression, delta merges, and backups. Automate alerts and baselines.

5. Guard memory: Keep hot data hot, cold data cold. Use workload classes and limits to prevent noisy neighbors.

6. Stay current: Apply revisions and feature packs that deliver optimizer, compression, and stability gains.

7. Scale with intent: Plan vertical vs. horizontal scale. For scale-out, design partitions and table placement deliberately.

8. Secure without drag: Roles, encryption, and auditing configured cleanly; performance and security can coexist.

Get these disciplines right and HANA hums under pressure.

How to Display SAP HANA Skills on Your Resume

2. SAP Fiori

SAP Fiori is the design system and app suite that brings role-based, responsive UX to SAP. It streamlines tasks across devices and makes enterprise workflows feel less like a maze and more like a guided path.

Why It's Important

Cleaner UX speeds adoption and kills friction. For architecture, that translates into happier users, fewer workarounds, and measurable productivity.

How to Improve SAP Fiori Skills

1. Design for roles: Start from personas and tasks. Keep flows lean, fields relevant, and navigation obvious.

2. Use Fiori elements: Generate consistent UIs from metadata; extend when necessary, not by default.

3. Optimize OData: Page, filter, and expand carefully. Push logic to the server; minimize round trips.

4. Harden security: HTTPS everywhere, trusted identity providers, tight roles, masked data where appropriate.

5. Responsive by design: Test across phone, tablet, desktop. Don’t just shrink—adapt.

6. Automate tests: Add UI test automation for regressions and performance checks before go-live.

7. Close the loop: Capture in-app feedback and analytics; iterate quickly on real usage signals.

8. Enablement: Short, targeted training and job aids beat thick manuals every time.

How to Display SAP Fiori Skills on Your Resume

3. SAP S/4HANA

S/4HANA is SAP’s next-gen ERP, powered by HANA, simplified data structures, and a Fiori-first UX. It’s the backbone for digital processes, real-time analytics, and automation at scale.

Why It's Important

It centralizes core processes and unlocks real-time insights. Architecture becomes cleaner, integrations lighter, and innovation faster.

How to Improve SAP S/4HANA Skills

1. Start with facts: Run Readiness Check, custom code checks, and sizing. Inventory integrations. Map business value to scope—not everything needs to move at once.

2. Data discipline: Cleanse, archive, and harmonize before migration. Good data shrinks downtime and boosts outcomes.

3. Rationalize custom: Retire or refactor Z-code. Use modern extensibility (in-app, side-by-side on BTP) instead of invasive mods.

4. Lean UX: Deploy role-based Fiori apps instead of replicating old transactions. Measure adoption.

5. Performance hygiene: Monitor bottlenecks, index selectively, and optimize critical jobs early.

6. Test continuously: Automate unit, integration, regression, and security tests. Keep transports small and frequent.

7. Cloud strategy: Consider RISE with SAP, hyperscaler options, and integration patterns upfront.

8. Know the horizon: ECC mainstream maintenance runs to 2027 with optional extended to 2030—plan timelines accordingly.

How to Display SAP S/4HANA Skills on Your Resume

4. SAP BW/4HANA

SAP BW/4HANA is the HANA-optimized data warehouse for governed modeling and fast analytics. It simplifies objects, accelerates queries, and plays well with both SAP and non-SAP sources.

Why It's Important

Enterprises need trusted, modeled data alongside agile exploration. BW/4HANA provides the governed spine that feeds analytics with quality and speed.

How to Improve SAP BW/4HANA Skills

1. Model for pushdown: Use ADSOs, CompositeProviders, and HANA processing for heavy lifting.

2. Tier data smartly: Hot/warm/cold with Data Tiering Optimization to balance cost and performance.

3. Tune queries: Leverage aggregates, pruning, and correct join types. Profile top reports regularly.

4. Modern integration: Pair with SAP Datasphere for cloud elasticity and self-service while keeping governance intact.

5. Secure by design: Analysis authorizations, row-level filters, masking where needed, and robust audit trails.

6. Stay current: Apply feature packs and plan upgrades; new capabilities often arrive with meaningful performance gains.

7. Upskill the team: Cross-train on HANA SQL, BW/4 modeling, and cloud data orchestration patterns.

How to Display SAP BW/4HANA Skills on Your Resume

5. SAP Cloud Platform

SAP Cloud Platform is now SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). It’s the cloud foundation for integrating, extending, and building SAP-centric apps with services for integration, data, analytics, automation, and AI.

Why It's Important

BTP turns rigid cores into flexible systems. You extend cleanly, integrate broadly, and innovate faster without destabilizing the ERP heart.

How to Improve SAP Cloud Platform Skills

1. Adopt the suite: Lean into Integration Suite, Event Mesh, SAP Build, Automation, and AI services as building blocks.

2. Engineer for reliability: Use the BTP cockpit for quotas, autoscaling, and health checks. Design for multi-zone resilience.

3. Security first: Enforce identity federation, OAuth scopes, encryption, and least-privilege roles. Validate supply chain for code and dependencies.

4. Observability: Centralize logs, metrics, and traces. SLOs, alerts, runbooks—no surprises in production.

5. DevOps flow: Pipelines for CI/CD, transport governance, and blue/green or canary releases as standard practice.

6. Right extension model: In-app for simple tweaks, side-by-side for complex logic. Keep the core clean.

7. Keep learning: Track service roadmaps and refresh certifications; the platform evolves quickly.

How to Display SAP Cloud Platform Skills on Your Resume

6. SAP Leonardo

SAP Leonardo as a brand has been folded into SAP BTP services. The underlying capabilities—AI, machine learning, IoT, analytics, blockchain—live on across SAP AI services, IoT, and data/analytics offerings.

Why It's Important

The value remains: intelligent, event-driven applications that infuse ML, IoT signals, and analytics into core processes.

How to Improve SAP Leonardo Skills

1. Build on today’s services: Use SAP AI Business Services, AI Core, and IoT services on BTP for tangible scenarios like invoice automation or asset monitoring.

2. Edge to cloud: Push preprocessing to the edge where needed, stream events, react in near real time.

3. Responsible AI: Bias checks, explainability, human-in-the-loop. Bake governance into pipelines.

4. Pilot, then scale: Rapid prototypes, clear KPIs, and a path to production with operations in mind.

5. Integrate tightly: Wire models into S/4HANA processes and Fiori apps; insights only matter when they trigger action.

How to Display SAP Leonardo Skills on Your Resume

7. SAP ABAP

ABAP is the backbone language for SAP business logic. Modern ABAP spans CDS views, the RESTful ABAP Programming Model (RAP), OData services, and cloud-friendly patterns.

Why It's Important

Custom capability lives here. Clean, efficient ABAP extends standard processes without breaking the core.

How to Improve SAP ABAP Skills

1. Go modern: Embrace RAP, CDS, annotations, and ABAP Cloud guidelines. Fewer mods, more extensions.

2. Performance habits: Push computation to HANA, avoid nested selects, minimize implicit conversions, and index thoughtfully.

3. Quality gates: Automate ATC checks, unit tests, and code coverage. Enforce naming standards and Clean ABAP conventions.

4. APIs over hacks: Prefer released APIs, BAPIs, and events. No direct table writes unless explicitly allowed.

5. Dev workflow: Transport discipline, feature branches, and Git-enabled CTS where applicable.

6. Security in code: Authority checks, input validation, and careful handling of dynamic SQL.

How to Display SAP ABAP Skills on Your Resume

8. SAP BusinessObjects

BusinessObjects (BO) delivers governed reporting, ad hoc analysis, and enterprise BI at scale. It often runs in tandem with SAP Analytics Cloud for hybrid analytics strategies.

Why It's Important

Regulated, formatted reports still matter. BO anchors trusted information while other tools handle self-service and predictive needs.

How to Improve SAP BusinessObjects Skills

1. Upgrade wisely: Move to the latest supported release and patch level. Validate server sizing and cluster design.

2. Design efficient universes: Optimize joins, contexts, and aggregate awareness. Keep semantic layers tidy and documented.

3. Report tuning: Reduce data transfers, filter early, cache smartly, and schedule heavy jobs off-peak.

4. Harden security: Enforce folder-level permissions, row-level restrictions, and governance for exports/sharing.

5. Hybrid approach: Offload dashboards and exploration to SAP Analytics Cloud while BO covers operational and regulatory reports.

6. Train users: Role-based enablement for developers, power users, and consumers boosts adoption and report quality.

How to Display SAP BusinessObjects Skills on Your Resume

9. SAP PI/PO

PI/PO provides on-prem integration and orchestration for SAP and non-SAP systems. It’s the stalwart middleware many landscapes still depend on.

Why It's Important

Reliable integrations keep processes stitched together. When PI/PO runs smoothly, business flows stay smooth.

How to Improve SAP PI/PO Skills

1. Monitor relentlessly: Track message throughput, queues, and adapter health. Alert on latency spikes and retries.

2. Streamline interfaces: Consolidate mappings, standardize canonical models, and decommission stale endpoints.

3. Robust error handling: Correlate, retry, and alert with context. Build reprocessing that operators actually love.

4. Secure transports: HTTPS, TLS, SFTP, certificates managed cleanly. Rotate keys on a schedule.

5. Housekeeping: Archive old payloads, prune logs, and cap growth to keep performance predictable.

6. Plan the future: Roadmap a move to SAP Integration Suite (Cloud Integration, API Management, Event Mesh) for cloud-era connectivity.

7. Scale sensibly: Load balance and cluster where traffic demands it. Test failover, not just configure it.

How to Display SAP PI/PO Skills on Your Resume

10. SAP Solution Manager

Solution Manager (SolMan) centralizes lifecycle management: monitoring, testing, documentation, change control. Many organizations pair or transition to SAP Cloud ALM for cloud-centric operations.

Why It's Important

It creates structure—governed processes, clear visibility, and dependable delivery across complex SAP estates.

How to Improve SAP Solution Manager Skills

1. Keep it current: Apply support packs and maintain connected systems for accurate telemetry.

2. Tailor monitoring: Fine-tune MAI alerts and dashboards to what matters—cut noise, sharpen signals.

3. Document the truth: Solution Documentation as the single source. Link requirements to tests to transports.

4. Automate tests: Use Test Suite with risk-based testing. Regression packs save weekends.

5. Change control: Charm workflows that match your release cadence. Segregate duties cleanly.

6. Plan for Cloud ALM: Where cloud-first, align processes and integrations with SAP Cloud ALM capabilities.

How to Display SAP Solution Manager Skills on Your Resume

11. SAP NetWeaver

NetWeaver is the technical foundation for many SAP applications across ABAP and Java stacks. It underpins interoperability, security, and extensibility in classic landscapes.

Why It's Important

For brownfield estates, it’s still the bedrock. Understanding its services and limits keeps systems stable while you modernize around them.

How to Improve SAP NetWeaver Skills

1. Performance posture: Use EarlyWatch insights, tune work processes, and optimize buffers. Profile heavy jobs routinely.

2. Patch and harden: Apply kernels and security notes quickly. Tighten RFCs, SSO, and SNC where applicable.

3. Integration clarity: Standardize on SAP Integration Suite for new connections; keep NetWeaver clean and minimal.

4. Upgrade discipline: Plan upgrades with Maintenance Planner. Test custom code with ATC/SCI before cutover.

5. Modern UIs: Favor Fiori and SAPUI5 front ends rather than aging dynpro interfaces for new work.

6. Cloud trajectory: Where possible, shift extensions to BTP and reduce on-core customizations.

How to Display SAP NetWeaver Skills on Your Resume

12. SAP ECC Migration

SAP ECC migration is the journey from ECC to S/4HANA—moving data, processes, and extensions onto a modern, real-time platform with a cleaner core.

Why It's Important

Modernization unlocks speed, analytics, automation, and compatibility with new services. It also aligns with SAP’s maintenance horizon—pragmatic and strategic in one move.

How to Improve SAP ECC Migration Skills

1. Choose your path: Brownfield (system conversion), Greenfield (new implementation), or Selective Data Transition. Match approach to business goals and timeline.

2. Front-load analysis: Run readiness and custom code checks, map integrations, estimate downtime, and define cutover playbooks.

3. Clean the house: Archive, harmonize, and de-duplicate. Data quality pays dividends during migration and beyond.

4. Slim the core: Retire mods, replace with standard where feasible, and shift extensions to BTP.

5. Industrialize testing: Automate functional, performance, and security tests. Dress rehearsals reveal the sharp edges.

6. Organize for change: Training, comms, hypercare. Roles and responsibilities crisp, escalation lanes clear.

7. Leverage services: Consider RISE with SAP for infrastructure, tooling, and service bundles that reduce friction.

8. Mind the clock: Plan against the 2027 mainstream and 2030 extended maintenance dates for ECC.

How to Display SAP ECC Migration Skills on Your Resume