Forward Deployed Application/ ML Engineering Expert

We help the world run better At SAP, we keep it simple: you bring your best to us, and we'll bring out the best in you. We're builders touching over 20 industries and 80% of global commerce, and we need your unique talents to help shape what's next. The work is challenging – but it matters. You'll find a place where you can be yourself, prioritize your wellbeing, and truly belong. What's in it for you? Constant learning, skill growth, great benefits, and a team that wants you to grow and succeed.      Location:  this is a hybrid position based from our New York City office located in the Hudson Yards.   What you'll build   In this role, you design, build, and operate AI-native enterprise applications that combine cloud-native software engineering with production-grade machine learning and agentic AI capabilities, embedded directly within customer environments and fast-moving delivery teams.   You translate ambiguous business and operational requirements into secure, scalable, and reliable solutions — owning technical delivery from discovery and prototyping through deployment, stabilization, and successful handover to platform or operations teams.   You are accountable for the technical quality, reliability, and impact of application solutions within your scope and apply modern AI-assisted engineering practices and architectural guardrails aligned with SAP standards to enable responsible and scalable AI adoption.   In this role, you will:

Design, develop, and operate production-grade, cloud-native enterprise applications integrating AI capabilities such as large language models, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and agent-based workflows. Embed directly into customer projects and fast-moving cross-functional teams to rapidly understand business processes, technical landscapes, and operational challenges. Translate business and product requirements into robust application architectures, balancing speed, quality, security, and long-term maintainability. Rapidly prototype, iterate, and productionize solutions in customer environments, adapting reference architectures and reusable assets to real-world enterprise constraints. Own application delivery end-to-end — from problem framing and prototyping through deployment, observability, and production operations. Apply AI-assisted engineering practices, evaluation frameworks, and architectural guardrails to ensure compliant, trustworthy, and high-quality solutions. Ensure delivery milestones, quality standards, and technical objectives are met, proactively managing risks and technical escalations within scope. Act as a key technical interface to customers and internal stakeholders, clearly communicating solution approaches, trade-offs, and progress. Contribute to engineering standards, best practices, and reusable components to improve efficiency and consistency across solutions.

10+ years of hands-on experience in software and application engineering for cloud-native, enterprise, and SaaS environments, with strong knowledge of architectural principles such as scalability, security, and reliability. Proven ability to design and deliver AI-native applications, utilizing large language models, RAG architectures, vector databases, and agentic systems to innovate enterprise workflows. Strong proficiency in widely used AI/ML Python libraries and frameworks, with exposure to data pipelines and MLOps practices. Skilled in integrating Agentic AI into complex business processes, ensuring responsible and effective use of AI agents within enterprise operations. Strong problem-solving skills, critical thinking, and exposure to design thinking practices; proven ability to mentor teams and establish development guardrails and best practices. Proven ability to mentor and inspire teams, establish best development guardrails and practices, and drive engineering culture across delivery teams. Exposure to SAP AI