SAP Cloud Infra Planning, Sr. Specialist

Job Description

Our company's Information Technology (IT) division partners with colleagues across the business to help serve our patients and customers around the world. Ours is a high-energy team of dynamic, innovative individuals dedicated to leveraging information and technology to efficiently drive revenue and productivity, thereby advancing our company's contribution to global medical innovation.

Enterprise IT (EIT) is an essential component of the current IT division that provides support to the Pharmaceutical Research and Development (R&D), Supply Chain (Manufacturing), Marketing (Human Health) organizations as well as Enabling Functions. The EIT SAP Platform Team is responsible for our company's SAP Global Template asset, delivering enterprise-level capabilities through harmonized business processes and data. The team is responsible for the operation of all our company's SAP and integrated solutions, governance of the associated enterprise assets, and cost-effective delivery of capabilities to support achievement of immediate and future state business objectives.

The SAP Cloud Infra Planning, Sr. Specialist will play a critical role in driving releases within our global environment and in leading the planning, coordination, and execution of global releases while also ensuring adherence to change management processes. The successful candidate should be familiar with processes and tools used to support, maintain, and change the SAP Platform. They must possess a deep understanding of SAP's platforms, products, and offering as well as have a strong technical background, exceptional project management skills, and the ability to work independently on high-profile tasks.

We are seeking professionals with the following qualifications, skills and experience:

Primary job responsibilities include:

• Plan, schedule, and coordinate global releases, working closely with cross-functional teams and stakeholders to oversee build implementation for multiple environments ensuring that the solution being released is reliable and meets the necessary quality standards.
• Coordinate with basis, security, quality, value teams, and product owners to ensure smooth and successful release deployments.
• Utilize tools such as MS Office Suite, MS Project, MS Excel, Atlassian JIRA, and Atlassian Confluence for project planning, tracking, reporting and documentation.
• Effectively communicate complex issues and challenges to senior management in a summarized manner, both written and verbal.
• Apply understanding of Agile and Scrum methodologies, ensuring effective collaboration within cross-functional teams and iterative delivery.
• Plan and facilitate the application of annual support packs and infrastructure upgrades to SAP systems and patching during maintenance windows.
• Support all testing efforts (Unit, Integration, Acceptance, Volume, Performance, Regression) by the various solutioning teams as well as obtain stakeholders' sign-off for each release.
• Create release plans that encompass the release scope, timeline, and resources required for each release.
• Conduct Release Readiness reviews, Business Go/No-Go reviews, and Milestone Reviews to ensure the readiness of each release.
• Establish and enforce standardized release processes across EIT, optimizing deployment efficiency and reducing risks.
• Participate in Change Advisory Board (CAB) meetings and other governance bodies to discuss release scope, roadblocks, and obtain necessary approvals (CAB is responsible for reviewing and approving changes to the IT environment)

Required Skills:

• 5+ years of IT business solutions deployment experience.
• 1+ years working with cloud high-availability failover capabilities.
• 1+ years working with Zero downtime maintenance.
• SAP experience required (release management) – should have general understanding and basic knowledge of tool and functionality.
• Proficiency with project management tools – MS Project, Atlassian JIRA, SharePoint, or similar.
• Understanding of infrastructure components and technologies to facilitate working closely with infrastructure teams to develop and execute builds of environments within defined timelines.
• Experience with modern cloud concepts such as SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS and related solutions.
• In-depth knowledge of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), facilitating proper management of the end-to-end release and change processes.
• Understanding of Agile and Scrum methodologies as well as DevOps principles supporting continuous deployment practices, as it aligns with modern software development approaches
• Proven record of excellent performance.
• Strong interpersonal skills: the ability to work well with people from different disciplines with varying degrees of technical experience; competence in clear concise and tactful communication with team leadership, clients, peers and team members.
• Demonstrate excellent time management skills to meet project deadlines and effectively prioritize tasks.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to translate complex release-related information into visual dashboards and reports that effectively communicate the quality and scope of releases to stakeholders.

Preferred Skills:

• PMP certified
• SaFe Agile Certified
• Life Sciences Industry experience preferred.
• 3+ years working with SAP Migrations
• 2+ years working with SAP S/4 HANA preferred.
• Extensive experience working on large global releases within SAP landscapes, ensuring seamless deployments without disruptions to ongoing business operations.
• Prior experience planning and executing projects on large global releases within SAP landscapes with resources spanning multiple geographical locations.
• Knowledge of SAP RISE is a plus
• Understanding of SAP tools, such as SAP Change Request Management (Charm) or AWS EC2, is desirable, enabling efficient change management and infrastructure management respectively.
• Familiarity using Service Now Problem resolution system.

Our company is committed to inclusion, ensuring that candidates can engage in a hiring process that exhibits their true capabilities. Please specify to our Talent Acquisition team if you need any support during the application or hiring process. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, age, disability status, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin.

#EIT2024

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Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully
Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company. No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails.

Employee Status:

Regular

Relocation:

VISA Sponsorship:

Travel Requirements:

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Hybrid

Shift:

Valid Driving License:

Hazardous Material(s):

Required Skills:

Measurement Analysis, Portfolio, Programme, and Project Support, Program Management, Risk Management, Stakeholder Relationship Management, Waterfall Project Management

Preferred Skills:

Job Posting End Date:

09/30/2024

*A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.

Job Posting End Date:09/30/2024

A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.

Requisition ID:R299199

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