SAP Solution Architect Lead

We believe in bold ideas, diverse perspectives, and the drive to transform knowledge into impact. Here, your curiosity fuels progress, your voice shapes innovation, and your ambition helps redefine what’s possible within science and learning. We are a culture that obsesses over impact, challenges, and drives what’s next to power infinite possibilities for our customers, colleagues and society at large.
About the Role:
About the Role
Wiley is seeking an experienced SAP Solution Architect to serve as a technical and functional authority across our enterprise SAP landscape. Spanning Finance & Controlling (FI/CO), Order-to-Cash (OTC), Revenue Accounting & Reporting (RAR), Warehouse Management (WM), Production Planning (PP), and adjacent modules, this role is central to designing, governing, and guiding end-to-end SAP solutions in alignment with enterprise standards, SAP best practices, and Wiley’s broader digital transformation objectives.
The SAP Solution Architect acts as the design authority across the SAP ecosystem — integrating SAP ECC (and/or S/4HANA), BTP, Ariba, Concur, SuccessFactors, finance, supply chain, and third-party systems — while championing a Clean Core approach and enabling Wiley’s strategic roadmap. Working at the intersection of Business, Product, Technology, and Delivery teams, this role translates complex business requirements into well-structured, scalable SAP solutions and produces clear design artifacts that empower delivery teams to execute with confidence.
The successful candidate brings deep functional and technical SAP expertise across multiple modules, strong command of integration and architecture patterns, proven experience leading complex transformation programs, and the ability to act as a trusted advisor and thought leader across business and technology functions.
Key Responsibilities
1. Architecture & Solution Design
Lead and architect end-to-end SAP solutions with a strong focus on ECC (and/or S/4HANA), across diverse business domains and enterprise-wide programs.
Define comprehensive solution architectures for the full SAP ecosystem, including technical blueprints, integration architectures, cost models, and staffing strategies for significant initiatives.
Design scalable, secure, and resilient solution approaches that balance functional requirements, technical soundness, long-term maintainability, and Wiley’s enterprise technology roadmap.
Assess and recommend SAP deployment options (ECC, S/4HANA, PCE, RISE with SAP, BTP extensions) for assigned business domains, applying recognized solution architecture methodologies and frameworks.
Drive build vs. configure vs. extend vs. integrate decisions to maximize ROI, minimize technical debt, and preserve Clean Core integrity.
Evaluate and ensure the scalability, reliability, and performance of SAP solutions, defining non-functional requirements and validating that implemented solutions meet them.
Drive solutioning for complex proposals, transformation business cases, and competitive initiatives, clearly articulating value through compelling storytelling and executive-level communication.
Leverage AI, intelligent tooling, and automation to create innovative and efficient solution architectures, continuously raising the quality and speed of delivery.
2. Clean Core & SAP Best Practices
Champion and enforce Clean Core principles across all SAP programs, minimizing customizations and ensuring solutions leverage standard SAP capabilities wherever possible.
Architect integrations using standard SAP APIs, events, and SAP Integration Suite (CPI), establishing extension patterns for requirements not met by standard functionality.
Oversee the configuration and customization of SAP modules, ensuring all changes are governed, documented, and aligned with enterprise architectural standards.
Ensure data consistency and integrity across procurement, finance, reporting, and downstream platforms.
Maintain expertise in SAP S/4HANA innovations, BTP services, Clean Core evolution, and RISE/GROW offerings, proactively identifying adoption opportunities.
Support SAP Document and Reporting Compliance (DRC) requirements across relevant business and financial processes.
3. Documentation & Design Artefacts
Produce and maintain comprehensive, clear, and actionable design artefacts including Solution Architecture Documents, Functional Design Documents (FDDs), Technical Design Documents (TDDs), Interface/API Design Specs, and Data Migration blueprints.
Create architecture and process flow diagrams that are consumable by both technical and non-technical stakeholders, using tools such as SAP Signavio, LeanIX, or equivalent enterprise process and architecture modelling platforms.
Contribute to and maintain the architecture decision logs, capturing rationale, trade-offs, and constraints for key design choices.
Ensure all documentation is current, accessible, and serves as a reliable reference for delivery teams, auditors, and governance bodies throughout the project lifecycle.
Develop clear technical specifications and integration plans that bridge business requirements and engineering execution without ambiguity.
4. Cross-Functional Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement
Act as the primary architecture liaison between IT, Finance, Operations, Procurement, and external partners — ensuring alignment, transparency, and confidence across all stakeholders.
Partner with Product Owners, Business Analysts, and executive stakeholders to assess capability requests, validate requirements, estimate effort and feasibility, and contribute to roadmap and investment decisions.
Facilitate design workshops, architecture reviews, sprint planning, and transition sessions to ensure clarity before implementation begins and continuity through go-live and stabilization.
Translate complex SAP architecture concepts into plain-language guidance for business audiences, and business requirements into precise technical specifications for engineering teams.
Collaborate with external SAP partners, system integrators, and SAP advisory teams to leverage best practices, drive quality, and deliver outcomes within architectural guardrails.
Provide architectural leadership and governance across system integrators and vendor delivery teams, ensuring solution consistency and accountability.
Act as a thought leader and trusted advisor within the SAP community and broader technology landscape, representing Wiley’s architecture perspective in external forums where relevant.
Mentor and coach functional and technical team members on SAP architecture principles, integration patterns, and best practices, helping to uplift capability across the SAP practice.