SAP Solution Architect

Why Valvoline Global Operations?

At Valvoline Global Operations, we’re proud to be The Original Motor Oil, but we’ve never rested on being first. Founded in 1866, we introduced the world’s first branded motor oil, staking our claim as a pioneer in the automotive and industrial solutions industry. Today, as an affiliate of Aramco, one of the world’s largest integrated energy and chemicals companies, we are driven by innovation and committed to creating sustainable solutions for a better future.

With a global presence, we develop future-ready products and provide best-in-class services for our partners around the world. For us, originality isn’t just about where we began; it’s about where we’re headed and how we’ll lead the way. We are originality in motion.

Our corporate values—Care, Integrity, Passion, Unity, and Excellence—are at the heart of everything we do. These values define how we operate, how we treat one another, and how we engage with our partners, customers, and the communities we serve. At Valvoline Global, we are united in our commitment to:

• Treating everyone with care.
• Acting with unwavering integrity.
• Striving for excellence in all endeavors.
• Delivering on our commitments with passion.
• Collaborating as one unified team.

When you join Valvoline Global, you’ll become part of a culture that celebrates creativity, innovation, and excellence. Together, we’re shaping the future of automotive and industrial solutions.

Job Purpose

The SAP Solution Architect partners with business and technology leaders across SAP-enabled functions, primarily Finance and Supply Chain, with additional support for HR and other enterprise capabilities, to shape and design scalable, secure, integrated, and sustainable business solutions.

This role serves as the architectural lead for initiatives where SAP is a significant component of the solution landscape. The SAP Solution Architect translates business capabilities, requirements, and strategic priorities into end-to-end solution architectures that may span SAP S/4HANA, the broader SAP ecosystem, enterprise applications, integration platforms, data services, and other technologies.

The SAP Solution Architect is accountable for the architecture of the overall solution - not simply the SAP components within it. The role evaluates where capabilities and business logic should reside, how systems should interact, how information should flow, and how solutions should evolve over time. SAP should be leveraged where it provides the appropriate enterprise capability, while solutions should avoid unnecessary customization, duplication, or coupling to SAP when another architectural approach better serves the enterprise.

Working as part of the Enterprise Architecture practice and in close partnership with delivery teams, functional leaders, Product Owners, SAP functional and technical teams, and other architects, this role provides architectural clarity and direction from early discovery through implementation.

The SAP Solution Architect does not own project management, functional configuration, software development, or people leadership. Instead, the role ensures solutions are appropriately shaped before implementation begins and remain aligned with business objectives and enterprise architecture principles throughout delivery.

How You Make an Impact (Job Accountabilities)

Partner with Business Functions and Shape Solutions (30%)

• Develop trusted partnerships with Finance, Supply Chain, HR, and other business and technology leaders supporting SAP-enabled capabilities.

• Participate in early discovery and planning discussions to understand business strategy, capabilities, pain points, requirements, and transformation priorities.

• Translate business needs into architectural options and recommended solution approaches rather than assuming a specific technology implementation.

• Facilitate solution-shaping and architecture workshops with Product Owners, functional SMEs, technical teams, vendors, and business stakeholders.

• Evaluate solution options across SAP and non-SAP technologies and clearly communicate architectural trade-offs, risks, dependencies, costs, and long-term implications.

• Provide impact analysis for proposed business process changes, new capabilities, enhancements, acquisitions, integrations, and transformation initiatives.

• Help stakeholders distinguish business requirements from technology implementation preferences and identify opportunities for simplification and standardization.

• Serve as a trusted architectural advisor to business and technology leaders throughout solution planning and delivery.

Lead End-to-End Solution Architecture (30%)

• Develop end-to-end solution architectures for initiatives in which SAP is a significant component of the business solution.

• Define appropriate system boundaries and responsibilities, including systems of record, systems of engagement, integration responsibilities, and placement of business logic.

• Create and maintain architecture artifacts including solution context diagrams, logical architectures, system interaction diagrams, data flows, architectural decisions, and supporting design documentation.

• Evaluate solution alternatives involving SAP S/4HANA, SAP cloud services, enterprise SaaS platforms, custom applications, integration platforms, data platforms, and other technologies.

• Ensure architecture decisions consider functional requirements as well as scalability, reliability, security, maintainability, supportability, upgradeability, and total lifecycle impact.

• Partner with SAP functional and technical SMEs to translate business process designs into sustainable enterprise architectures.

• Identify cross-functional and cross-system dependencies that may not be apparent within an individual SAP workstream.

• Ensure architectural decisions and solution boundaries are sufficiently defined before significant implementation work begins.

Promote Sustainable SAP Architecture and Clean Core Principles (15%)

• Promote SAP architecture principles that support clean core, standardization, upgradeability, appropriate extensibility, and long-term platform sustainability.

• Encourage the use of standard SAP capabilities where they appropriately satisfy business requirements while avoiding unnecessary customization.

• Evaluate extension approaches and recommend where capabilities should reside across S/4HANA, SAP extension technologies, integration platforms, adjacent enterprise applications, or other solutions.

• Challenge unnecessary custom development, tightly coupled integrations, direct dependencies, duplicated business logic, and other patterns that create long-term technical debt.

• Assess architectural implications of SAP releases, platform capabilities, modernization opportunities, and emerging SAP technologies.

• Balance short-term delivery requirements with the long-term sustainability and strategic direction of the enterprise technology landscape.

• Identify architectural and technical debt and contribute recommendations for remediation, simplification, or modernization.

Support Delivery and Architectural Governance (15%)

• Remain engaged with delivery teams throughout implementation to ensure solution intent is understood and architectural decisions remain valid as requirements evolve.

• Provide architectural guidance during planning, backlog refinement, solution design, and major implementation decisions.

• Review requirements and user stories where necessary to identify architectural dependencies, risks, non-functional requirements, and design implications without assuming Product Owner or Business Analyst responsibilities.

• Collaborate with SAP functional leads, technical leads, developers, integration teams, data teams, security teams, infrastructure teams, and implementation partners to resolve complex design decisions.

• Participate in design reviews and the Architecture Review Board (ARB), documenting significant architectural decisions, risks, exceptions, and dependencies.

• Evaluate proposed deviations from established architecture and enterprise standards and help teams identify practical alternatives.

• Support resolution of complex cross-system issues where architectural boundaries, ownership, data, integration, or business process design are contributing factors.

• Validate that implemented solutions materially align with approved architecture and document significant architectural changes made during delivery.

Ensure Enterprise Architecture Alignment (10%)

• Align SAP-enabled solutions with enterprise architecture strategies, standards, principles, and technology roadmaps.

• Partner with Enterprise, Integration, Data, Security, Infrastructure, and other Solution Architects to ensure solutions are coherent across architectural domains.

• Promote API-first and appropriately decoupled integration patterns using enterprise integration capabilities such as MuleSoft.

• Ensure solution architectures account for enterprise requirements related to security, identity, data governance, resiliency, observability, compliance, and supportability.

• Prevent isolated SAP decisions from creating unintended constraints or dependencies for downstream and adjacent applications.

• Contribute to capability roadmaps, application rationalization discussions, modernization strategies, and technology lifecycle planning.

• Identify recurring architecture patterns and lessons that can be standardized and reused across the broader Solution Architecture practice.

What You Bring to the Role (Job Qualifications / Education / Skills / Requirements / Capabilities)

Education and Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Business Technology, or a related discipline, or equivalent professional experience.

• 8+ years of experience designing, implementing, or supporting complex enterprise technology solutions.

• Significant experience working with SAP solutions in large-scale enterprise environments.

• Experience with SAP S/4HANA implementations, upgrades, migrations, transformations, or modernization initiatives strongly preferred.

• Demonstrated experience designing solutions spanning multiple applications, business functions, integration technologies, and data domains.

• Experience working with Finance and/or Supply Chain business processes and technology ecosystems.

• Experience collaborating with globally distributed business and technology teams is preferred.

SAP and Enterprise Technology Expertise

• Strong understanding of SAP S/4HANA architecture and the broader SAP technology ecosystem.

• Strong understanding of core enterprise processes supported by SAP, particularly across Finance and Supply Chain.

• Working knowledge of common SAP architectural concepts including integration, extensibility, security, master data, analytics, and application lifecycle considerations.

• Understanding of SAP clean-core principles and modern approaches to SAP extensibility.

• Familiarity with SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) and relevant SAP cloud capabilities.

• Ability to evaluate SAP capabilities in the context of a broader heterogeneous enterprise application landscape.

• Understanding of ERP integration with CRM, manufacturing, supply chain, data, analytics, SaaS, and other enterprise platforms.

• Familiarity with HR technology and SAP SuccessFactors is beneficial but not required.

Architecture and Technical Skills

• Strong understanding of solution architecture principles and end-to-end systems design.

• Experience developing conceptual and logical architecture models, system interaction diagrams, integration architectures, and data flows.

• Strong understanding of API-based integration, asynchronous/event-driven integration, middleware, and enterprise integration patterns.

• Experience with enterprise integration platforms; MuleSoft experience is preferred.

• Understanding of data architecture concepts including master data, systems of record, data ownership, synchronization, and governance.

• Working knowledge of cloud architecture, identity and access management, cybersecurity, resiliency, and non-functional requirements.

• Understanding of modern software delivery practices, DevOps, CI/CD, Agile delivery, and system development lifecycle methodologies.

• Ability to assess technical debt, architectural risk, system coupling, and long-term maintainability.

• Ability to produce architecture documentation that is clear and consumable by business stakeholders, engineers, project teams, and technology leadership.

Competencies Desired

• Business-oriented thinker - Begins with the business capability or problem rather than assuming a technology solution.

• Systems thinker - Understands how decisions within SAP affect upstream, downstream, and adjacent systems and business processes.

• Trusted advisor - Builds credibility with both functional and technical stakeholders and provides objective architectural guidance.

• Pragmatic architect - Balances architectural quality and long-term sustainability with business urgency and delivery realities.

• Effective facilitator - Leads discussions across business, functional, and technical teams and helps groups reach clear, documented decisions.

• Influences without authority - Creates alignment across teams without relying on direct organizational control.

• Comfortable with ambiguity - Can take loosely defined business problems and progressively shape them into structured solution options and architectural decisions.

• Strong communicator - Communicates complex architectural concepts at the appropriate level for executives, business leaders, functional SMEs, engineers, and delivery teams.

• Collaborative by design - Works effectively across Enterprise Architecture, SAP teams, Product Owners, business functions, vendors, and other technology domains.

• Strategic and delivery-aware - Connects individual project decisions to broader platform, capability, and enterprise roadmaps.

Role Boundaries

The SAP Solution Architect provides architectural leadership and accountability for the end-to-end solution but does not replace the specialized responsibilities of other delivery roles.

The role is not primarily accountable for:

• SAP functional configuration

• ABAP or application development

• SAP Basis administration

• Integration development

• Project or program management

• Product ownership

• Business analysis or ownership of user stories

• Detailed execution management

• Ownership of every SAP technical decision or configuration change

Instead, the SAP Solution Architect ensures that significant solution decisions are made intentionally, cross-system impacts are understood, architectural risks are surfaced, and the resulting solution aligns with business objectives and enterprise architecture direction.

Working Conditions / Physical Requirements / Travel Requirements

• Working Conditions / Physical Requirements: Must be willing to be available for evening and weekend work where escalations, projects, major deployments, or other business initiatives require architectural support.
• Travel Requirements: Up to 30%.
• $145,000-$160,000 base + 15% bonus

Valvoline Global is an equal opportunity employer. We are dedicated to fostering an environment where every individual feels valued, respected, and empowered to contribute their unique perspectives and skills. We strictly prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind, regardless of race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability, genetics, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other legally protected characteristic.

We are committed to ensuring accessibility throughout our recruitment process. If you require a reasonable accommodation to participate in any stage of the recruitment or selection process, please contact us at:.

• Email: Valvolineglobalcareers@valvolineglobal.com

This contact information is solely for accommodation requests. For inquiries about application status, please use the appropriate channels listed in your application materials.

Are You Ready to Make an Impact?

At Valvoline Global, we’re looking for passionate and talented individuals to join our journey of innovation and excellence. Are you ready to shape the future with us? Apply today.

Requisition ID: 2695