Senior SAP Solution Architect and Support Lead

JOB DETAILS

Type of contract : Consultant Contract

Level :  Level 4 - Executive

Hiring Unit : Bureau for Digital Business Solutions (DBS)

Duty Station : Paris

Work location : Remote

Duration of contract : 11 months

Hiring open to : External candidates

Application deadline (Midnight UTC+2 Time) : 12/10/2026

UNESCO Core Values: Commitment to the Organization, Integrity, Respect for Diversity, Professionalism

OVERVIEW

Under the supervision of the CITO, and in close consultation with DBS staff, the consultant will ensure the operational continuity, technical integrity, and controlled evolution of UNESCO’s SAP landscape while supporting preparations for its future transformation and migration to SAP S/4HANA and key transformational initiatives.

ASSIGNMENTS

UNESCO operates SAP ERP 6.0 Enhancement Package 8 (ECC) as a core component of its enterprise application landscape. The platform supports financial management, public-sector budget execution, human resources, payroll, banking and payments, real estate management, and other critical corporate processes.

The SAP installation is mature and has evolved over more than 20 years. It is extensively customized, with approximately one third of the executed code comprising custom developments. These developments are concentrated primarily in Funds Management, Project System, Human Resources Organizational Management and Payroll, Personnel Budget Control, workflows, banking, and payments.

The environment is characterized by the following:

• More than 70 per cent of business transactions originate from or are processed through applications outside SAP, requiring extensive integration with other corporate systems
• Budget planning and execution are closely integrated with Salesforce. This is one of the principal integrations to be understood, maintained, and further developed
• SAP Workflow is used extensively as a primary enabler of corporate processes and is integrated with an external Role Management solution built on top of SAP
• The system supports nine company codes
• UNESCO and its Institutes manage more than 150 active bank accounts
• A significant portfolio of custom developments and interfaces has accumulated over approximately 20 years and must be maintained while progressively preparing the landscape for a future migration to SAP S/4HANA

UNESCO maintains a small, highly skilled SAP team. Given the breadth, complexity, and business criticality of the environment, UNESCO requires a senior consultant capable of assuming several complementary responsibilities within a single assignment.

Business requirements are not always available as complete or formally documented specifications at the outset of an initiative. Consequently, solution requirements frequently need to be elicited, clarified, and progressively refined through collaborative working sessions with business owners, subject-matter experts, and technical teams. This iterative approach is essential to establish a shared understanding of business processes and controls and to translate operational needs into implementable functional and technical specifications.

Purpose of the Assignment

The purpose of the assignment is to ensure the operational continuity, technical integrity, and controlled evolution of UNESCO’s SAP landscape while supporting preparations for its future transformation and migration to SAP S/4HANA and key transformational initiatives.

The assignment is deliberately designed as a multi-hat senior role. The consultant will act simultaneously as:

• SAP solution and integration architect
• SAP technical team lead
• Coordinator of SAP support and development activities
• Senior technical and functional adviser
• Hands-on SAP developer and troubleshooter, where required
• Technical focal point for coordination with business owners, internal IT teams, implementation partners, banks, and other external service providers

The consultant must therefore combine strategic architecture capabilities with detailed knowledge of the existing solution and the ability to intervene directly in its design, configuration, development, integration, and support.

The role covers financial accounting, public-sector budget execution, banking and payment processes, Project System, Grants Management, Flexible Real Estate Management, SAP Workflow, custom SAP Fiori-type applications, integration architecture, custom ABAP development, S/4HANA readiness, and the application of agentic AI to SAP support and quality assurance.

Scope of Work and Responsibilities

The consultant will perform the following continuing responsibilities throughout the assignment. Activities identified as “operational support” concern the continuity and maintenance of the existing environment, while “evolution and pipeline” activities concern planned enhancements and transformation initiatives.

SAP Architecture, Technical Leadership and Team Coordination

•  Provide overall technical and solution architecture leadership for the SAP domain
• Ensure the coherence of SAP solutions, interfaces, custom developments, workflows, security dependencies, and related architectural decisions
• Lead and coordinate the work of the internal SAP team and relevant external consultants
• Plan, prioritize, assign, and monitor SAP support, maintenance, development, and transformation activities
• Coordinate dependencies between SAP and other corporate platforms, particularly Salesforce, MuleSoft, the external Role Management solution, banking platforms, and custom web applications
• Maintain the SAP activity backlog and Jira dashboards, ensuring that priorities, ownership, dependencies, risks, and delivery status remain current
• Prepare and present technical and delivery status updates to management, business owners, project teams, and other stakeholders
• Facilitate technical decision-making, identify risks and constraints, and escalate matters requiring business or management arbitration
• Review technical designs, development specifications, code, and implementation plans to ensure compliance with agreed architecture and quality standards
• Support incident resolution and take direct ownership of complex or critical technical issues where senior-level intervention is required
• Plan and facilitate co-working workshops with business owners, subject-matter experts, and technical teams to elicit, clarify, challenge, and refine business requirements
• Analyse existing processes, system behaviour, custom developments, interfaces, reports, controls, and available documentation to identify requirements that may not have been formally captured
• Translate business needs and workshop outcomes into structured process definitions, functional specifications, user stories, acceptance criteria, solution designs, and technical requirements
• Identify gaps, ambiguities, inconsistencies, dependencies, and decisions required, and work with the relevant stakeholders to obtain clarification and agreement before implementation
• Maintain traceability between agreed business requirements, functional specifications, technical designs, development activities, and test scenarios
• Support business stakeholders in validating and formally confirming the refined requirements and proposed solution before development or deployment

SAP S/4HANA Preparation

The consultant will support UNESCO’s preparation for a future migration to SAP S/4HANA, including:

• Inventory and classification of approximately 20 years of custom SAP code
• Identification of obsolete, redundant, replaceable, and business-critical custom developments
• Assessment of custom-code compatibility and remediation requirements
• Analysis of interfaces, workflows, enhancements, reports, forms, and external dependencies
• Assessment of the impact of the proposed migration on the wider application landscape
• Preparation for Business Partner migration
• Contribution to the definition of transition options, sequencing, effort estimates, risks, and implementation roadmaps
• Ensuring that current enhancements do not unnecessarily increase future migration complexity or technical debt

Agentic AI and Intelligent Automation

The consultant will contribute to the exploration and responsible application of agentic AI and automation within the SAP domain, including:

• Use of process-mining approaches to identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies, control weaknesses, and automation opportunities
• Design of AI-assisted capabilities to facilitate SAP incident analysis, knowledge retrieval, troubleshooting, documentation, and support activities
• Exploration of agents capable of supporting technical and functional analysis while respecting UNESCO’s information security and governance requirements
• Automation of testing for custom web applications using Playwright or equivalent technologies
• Development of reusable test scenarios and integration of automated testing into relevant delivery and quality-assurance processes

Custom Development and Technical Support

• Design, develop, test, document, and maintain custom SAP extensions
• Perform hands-on ABAP development and technical troubleshooting where required
• Develop or modify interfaces, services, reports, workflows, enhancements, forms, Gateway services, and related SAP components
• Review developments produced by other team members or external providers
• Ensure adherence to development, security, performance, transport, testing, and documentation standards
• Support deployments and provide advanced production support for critical issues

CONTRACT DURATION

The assignment is expected to cover a period of 11 months, commencing on or around 01/01/2027.

The services will be delivered [remotely/on UNESCO premises through a hybrid arrangement], subject to operational requirements. Availability may be required during critical production incidents, financial closing exercises, banking implementations, and major deployments.

Any travel required for the assignment will be agreed in advance and handled in accordance with UNESCO’s applicable rules and procedures.

DELIVERABLES

The assignment concerns continuing services rather than a single project deliverable. Expected outputs will include, as applicable:

• Coordinated and prioritized SAP work plans and backlogs
• Up-to-date Jira dashboards and delivery status reporting
• Architecture assessments, solution designs, and technical recommendations
• Technical and functional specifications
• Risk, dependency, and impact assessments
• Developed, configured, tested, and documented SAP solutions
• Resolved incidents and production-support issues
• Reviewed and quality-assured code and technical deliverables
• Maintained and improved SAP interfaces and workflows
• Test strategies, test cases, automated tests, and test results
• Technical documentation and knowledge-transfer materials
• S/4HANA readiness assessments and custom-code inventories
• Recommendations and prototypes relating to agentic AI, process mining, and support automation
• Periodic progress reports covering completed work, planned activities, risks, issues, dependencies, and decisions required

Detailed priorities and delivery dates will be agreed with UNESCO and adjusted throughout the assignment according to operational requirements and programme priorities.

Performance Indicators

The consultant’s performance will be assessed against the following indicators:

• Continuity and stability of business-critical SAP services
• Timely resolution of high-priority incidents and technical issues
• Quality, security, maintainability, and performance of delivered solutions
• Effective coordination of internal and external SAP resources
• Accuracy and timeliness of planning, Jira reporting, and stakeholder communication
• Compliance with UNESCO’s architecture, development, change-management, and information-security standards
• Effective management of dependencies across SAP and non-SAP systems
• Progress against agreed operational and transformation priorities
• Quality and completeness of technical documentation and knowledge transfer
• Contribution to reducing technical debt and improving readiness for SAP S/4HANA

COMPETENCIES - Core (C) & Managerial (M)

• Communication (C)
• Accountability (C)
• Innovation (C)
• Knowlegde sharing and continuous improvement (C)
• Planning and organizing (C)
• Results focus (C)
• Teamwork (C)

For detailed information, please consult the UNESCO Competency Framework.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

EDUCATION

• An advanced university degree in computer science, information systems, engineering, finance systems, business administration, or another relevant discipline.
• A first-level university degree combined with additional relevant professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an advanced degree.

WORK EXPERIENCE

• A minimum of 10 years of progressively responsible professional experience in SAP architecture, implementation, development, integration, and production support
• Demonstrated experience in a senior SAP technical leadership, solution architecture, or team-lead role
• Demonstrated ability to combine architectural leadership and coordination responsibilities with hands-on technical delivery
• Significant experience with complex, mature, and highly customized SAP ECC environments
• Relevant experience in public-sector or international-organization financial and budget-management environments
• Demonstrated experience supporting business-critical SAP operations involving multiple company codes, banking arrangements, workflows, interfaces, and external applications
• Experience coordinating multidisciplinary teams and external service providers
• Experience preparing technical plans, delivery dashboards, status reports, and presentations for technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Demonstrated experience in business analysis and requirements engineering in environments where initial requirements may be incomplete, evolving, or not formally documented
• Proven ability to facilitate collaborative workshops, guide stakeholders through complex business and system processes, and progressively translate business needs into clear and implementable functional specifications
• Experience deriving and validating requirements through analysis of existing system behaviour, custom code, interfaces, workflows, reports, business controls, and stakeholder knowledge

SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES

The consultant should demonstrate:

• Strong architectural and analytical capabilities
• Ability to understand complex end-to-end business processes and translate them into sustainable technical solutions
• Strong leadership and team-coordination skills, including the ability to lead through technical expertise
• A pragmatic, hands-on approach and willingness to intervene directly in development and troubleshooting activities
• Ability to manage several concurrent operational and transformation priorities
• Sound judgement in balancing urgent business needs, solution quality, technical debt, and longer-term transformation objectives
• Strong problem-solving and incident-management capabilities
• Ability to communicate complex technical matters clearly to business stakeholders and senior management;
• Strong documentation and knowledge-transfer skills
• Ability to work collaboratively in a multicultural and multidisciplinary environment
• High standards of integrity, accountability, confidentiality, and service orientation

LANGUAGES

• Excellent written and spoken English or French and good working knowledge of the other language
• Knowledge of another UNESCO official language would be an advantage

Governance and Reporting

The consultant will work under the overall authority of the Chief Information and Technology Officer and under the direct supervision of the responsible Head of Section within the Bureau for Digital Business Solutions.

The consultant will work closely with:

• Members of the SAP and enterprise applications teams
• Finance, budget, procurement, human resources, and real estate business owners
• Salesforce, integration, data, infrastructure, security, and service-management teams
• Banks and payment-service providers
• External implementation and support partners
• Other UNESCO stakeholders as required

Confidentiality and Ownership

All information accessed or produced in connection with this assignment shall be treated as confidential

All source code, technical documentation, architecture materials, configurations, specifications, test assets, reports, and other deliverables produced under the assignment shall remain the property of UNESCO and shall be transferred to UNESCO in an accessible and maintainable format

The consultant will ensure adequate documentation and knowledge transfer throughout the assignment to reduce dependency on individual resources and support the long-term sustainability of the SAP environment

APPLICATION PROCESS

Please upload the following documents into one single PDF file:

1) an updated curriculum vitae

2) a technical proposal including an approach and methodology for the assignment (1-2 pages)

3) a financial proposal: The amount to be charged for the assignment period from 1 January 2027 to 30 November 2027, which should be quoted in US dollars or Euros as a monthly fee.

SELECTION AND RECRUITMENT PROCESS

Please note that all candidates must complete an on-line application and provide complete and accurate information, by the above deadline.

To apply, please visit the UNESCO Careers website. No modifications can be made to the application once submitted. 

The process may include pre-recorded video interviews and/or written assessments, interviews with a Panel, as well as reference checks. In addition, candidates may be requested to provide additional information which may be pertinent to the position’s qualifications.  

Please note that all candidates, whether selected or not, will be informed of the outcome of their application in due course. 

Short-listed candidates may also be added to Talent Pools; subject to their consent (i.e. Data Privacy Statement).

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• UNESCO recalls that paramount consideration in the appointment of personnel shall be the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, technical competence and integrity.
• UNESCO applies a zero-tolerance policy against all forms of harassment.
• lndividuals from minority groups and indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply.
• All applications will be treated with the highest level of confidentiality.
• UNESCO does not charge a fee at any stage of the hiring process.