Application Development Associate Jobs in Charlotte, NC

Ahold Delhaize USA, a division of global food retailer Ahold Delhaize, is part of the U.S. family of brands, which also includes five leading omnichannel grocery brands – Food Lion, Giant Food, The GIANT Company, Hannaford and Stop & Shop. Ahold Delhaize USA associates support the brands with a wide range of services, including Finance, Legal, Sustainability, Commercial, Digital and E-commerce, Technology and more.

The Manager III, SAP Application Development is responsible for leading the design, build, and delivery of SAP custom and extended solutions across S/4HANA and SAP BTP in support of the Retail Spine program, a business led, IT enabled transformation program designed to unlock long term competitiveness, improve operational efficiency, and deliver enterprise wide capabilities aligned to the future state operating model. This leader manages a team of SAP application developers and champions an AI-first engineering approach, leveraging AI-assisted development, automation, and intelligent tooling to improve code quality, delivery speed, and operational reliability. All development activities are executed in alignment with Clean Core principles, the RISE with SAP extensibility model, and responsible AI practices to protect system maintainability, security, and upgradeability. The Manager partners closely with SAP Platform Engineering, functional technology leads, systems integrators, and third-party vendors to deliver secure, reliable, and fit-for-purpose SAP solutions on schedule. Through strong technical leadership, modern engineering practices, and a culture of continuous improvement, this role plays a critical part in enabling the company’s retail and digital transformation objectives.

• Provide strategic and operational leadership over SAP application development functions, overseeing the design, build, and delivery of solutions across S/4HANA and SAP BTP in alignment with Retail Spine program objectives, SAP Activate delivery phases, and clean core adoption principles.
• Own and enforce the Clean Core extensibility standard across all development activity, ensuring custom and partner solutions leverage SAP-approved extensibility patterns - including BAdIs, released APIs, RAP-based extensions, side-by-side BTP extensions, and event-driven architectures - and that technical debt introduction is governed and minimized throughout the program lifecycle.
• Define and maintain the development taxonomy and delivery scope across ABAP (RAP, CDS Views, OData services), Fiori/UI5 applications, SAP BTP services, workflow and process automation, forms, integrations, and cloud-native components - ensuring full WRICEF visibility, traceability, and prioritization alignment with program releases.
• Lead API-first and service-based design standards, governing the use of OData, REST APIs, SAP Integration Suite (CPI), and event messaging frameworks to enable scalable, decoupled integration across the retail ecosystem and enterprise application landscape.
• Govern SI-delivered application development work products, ensuring adherence to architecture standards, clean core compliance, code quality benchmarks, security requirements, and performance expectations - including participation in design reviews, code reviews, and transport governance processes.
• Partner with SAP Solution Architects, Platform, and Basis teams to ensure development patterns are aligned to the RISE with SAP target architecture, BTP platform strategy, and long-term technology modernization roadmap - proactively identifying and resolving architectural conflicts before they reach build.
• Establish and enforce engineering standards across the full development lifecycle, including coding standards, peer and architecture review gates, automated testing frameworks, DevSecOps practices, transport management discipline, and release readiness criteria - operating consistently across Agile, hybrid, and program-controlled delivery models.
• Establish standards, governance frameworks, and adoption roadmaps for AI-assisted development tooling including SAP Joule and equivalent developer productivity platforms defining acceptable use policies, quality guardrails, code review requirements, and clean core compliance validation to ensure AI-generated outputs meet program architecture and security standards.
• Own the application development contribution to key SAP Activate phase gates - including Fit-to-Standard workshops, design sign-off, build quality reviews, and go-live readiness assessments - ensuring development workstreams are a reliable input to program milestone delivery.
• Define and track KPIs for application development operations, including build velocity, defect rates, clean core compliance scores, transport success rates, and rework ratios - using metrics to drive quality improvement, capacity planning, and SI performance conversations.
• Provide development leadership during system integration testing, user acceptance testing, cutovers, and go-lives - coordinating transport sequencing, defect triage, emergency fix protocols, and hypercare support to ensure stable and predictable deployments.
• Mentor and develop SAP application developers and technical leads, building capability in modern SAP development practices - RAP, BTP services, API design, cloud-native extensibility, and AI-assisted development tooling - and fostering a culture of engineering excellence, clean core discipline, and continuous improvement.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related field.
• 10+ years of SAP application development experience, including ABAP, Fiori/UI5, SAP BTP, and integration technologies.
• 3-5+ years of experience leading development teams or managing SAP delivery workstreams.
• Hands on expertise in SAP S/4HANA development, CDS views, RAP model, OData services, and SAP extensibility patterns.
• Strong understanding of Clean Core principles and SAP recommended customization approaches.
• Experience working with Systems Integrators and multi-vendor delivery teams.
• Familiarity with Agile delivery models, DevOps practices, and CI/CD pipelines in SAP environments.
• Strong communication, stakeholder management, and technical leadership skills.

• Master's degree in Information Systems, Technology Management, or related discipline.
• SAP certifications in ABAP, S/4HANA development, or SAP BTP.
• Experience with SAP Retail, Consumer Goods, or large-scale ERP transformation programs.
• Hands-on experience with SAP BTP services, event-based integration, and cloud native development.
• Experience supporting large enterprise transformations such as SAP S/4HANA migrations or Retail Spine-scale programs.