[Hiring] Team Lead SAP Operations @itesysag

Role Description

As Team Lead SAP Operations, you lead our New Zealand SAP Basis team from Auckland, combining your SAP Basis expertise with people leadership. Your team provides operational coverage of European customer SAP landscapes during New Zealand daytime hours, weekends and public holidays, keeping customer systems stable, secure and available around the clock in tight handover with our Swiss and German colleagues. Approximately 60% of the role is dedicated to hands-on technical work, with the remaining 40% focused on leadership, team development and service improvement. This is a remote role within New Zealand, with a preference for Auckland.

Responsibilities

• Technical delivery
  • Lead and personally contribute to SAP Basis operations across a portfolio of managed-service customers.
  • Manage the day-to-day SAP Basis workload, including system monitoring, patching, transport management, user administration, system copies and ongoing platform maintenance.
  • Oversee OS-level administration and patching on Linux and Windows Server in an SAP context, including scripted automation of recurring tasks.
  • Support backup, restore and certificate management activities across customer environment.
  • Act as the technical escalation point for complex incidents, root-cause analysis and cross-system troubleshooting during NZ coverage hours.
• Team leadership
  • Lead, coach and develop a small, established SAP Basis team in Auckland, fostering a collaborative and high-performing culture.
  • Own recruitment, onboarding, certification planning and performance management for the NZ team.
  • Coordinate the NZ on-call and shift schedule and ensure transparent communication with stakeholders.
  • Drive knowledge sharing and continuously improve operational documentation.
  • Act as the NZ team’s primary interface with the Country Manager NZ, Swiss and German leads, Service and Project Managers, and customer contacts.
• Service delivery and continuous improvement
  • Ensure reliable service delivery through disciplined resource planning, prioritisation and adherence to SLAs and customer-specific contracts.
  • Improve operational processes including handovers, ticket handling and runbooks. Balance customer needs, service quality and commercial outcomes in day-to-day decisions.
  • Contribute to the long-term stability, security and evolution of customer SAP landscapes, and to the growth of the NZ delivery capability.

Qualifications

• Several years of hands-on SAP Basis experience across S/4HANA and/or ECC.
• Strong administration skills in various database technologies and solid Linux and Windows Server administration skills, with comfort in shell and/or PowerShell scripting for automation.
• Practical experience with enterprise backup tooling, SAP monitoring (SAP Solution Manager and/or Focused Run) and ticketing platforms (ServiceNow or similar).
• Ideally proven leadership experience in a technical operations, SAP consulting or managed services environment. We also welcome experienced SAP Basis Consultants who are ready to take their first step into a leadership role with a well-defined leadership approach and a clear vision for developing and empowering technical teams.
• Strong organisational, communication and decision-making skills, with a pragmatic, solution-oriented mindset and a customer- and commercially aware outlook.
• Relevant SAP certifications (SAP Certified Technology Associate or Professional, or S/4HANA System Administration) advantageous.
• Professional communication skills in English.

Requirements

• You need to have an existing right to work in New Zealand. We cannot offer visa sponsorship for this role.