Senior Design Manager - Vice President, SAP Web Design Systems (m/f/d)

We help the world run better

Our company culture is focused on helping our employees enable innovation by building breakthroughs together. How? We focus every day on building the foundation for tomorrow and creating a workplace that embraces differences, values flexibility, and is aligned to our purpose-driven and future-focused work. We offer a highly collaborative, caring team environment with a strong focus on learning and development, recognition for your individual contributions, and a variety of benefit options for you to choose from. Apply now!

What you'll do

SAP Design is seeking a manager to join the Design Language & Systems team to lead the design system for web-based products. In this role, you will be responsible for a highly skilled and diverse team of about 30 designers reporting to three managers in Walldorf, Germany and Sofia, Bulgaria. In this critical role, you will be influencing our design strategy and execution in close collaboration with our Chief Design Officer and product design leaders, as well as our global customers.
As part of the Design Language & Systems team, you will work together with all SAP products areas including S/4HANA, Concur, SuccessFactors and other enterprise software solutions. We believe in collaboration and the joint ownership of the SAP Design System. Our team plays a critical role in orchestrating the individual team contributions as well as developing the global strategy for system adoption and contribution. Our long-standing collaborative relationship with the engineering teams allows us to deliver not only design artifacts but reusable code.
The team is highly influential in the development of our overall design best practices, support for our existing SAP Fiori Design Guidelines, design language and theming concepts, component libraries, and design tools.

We’d love to hear from you if you:

• Are a design leader who is hands-off on pixels but shapes the big picture
• Love to work across teams and silos and celebrate joint successes over individual victories
• Are a great communicator and can translate design intention into engaging stories
• Able to define a vision and break it down into tangible steps
• Ready to strongly advocate for your team’s positions and intentions
• Can see the use case behind the solution, and have an analytical view on design with the ability to ask the right questions
• Accept failure as part of progress without being afraid to make decisions
• Understand yourself as a leader and part of a team, sharing the same goals and pains as the people you manage

What you bring

• 5+ years experience as a design manager. Ideally you have experience in managing managers
• Experience with working in a large enterprise setting, understanding the decision making and collaboration processes. Ideally you are comfortable communicating with senior managers and have some Board room experience and skills
• Experience in product design, preferably in enterprise software
• Experience in design systems and the associated challenges in large organizations
• Strong communication skills, openness, and interest in people; if you prefer direct conversation over email, and discussion over complaint, you have the right mindset
• Strong organisational and analytical skills to define methods and processes
• If you think that this could be the next step in your career and you want to work with some of the most knowledgeable experts in enterprise software design, please contact us!

We build breakthroughs together

SAP innovations help more than 400,000 customers worldwide work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively. Originally known for leadership in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, SAP has evolved to become a market leader in end-to-end business application software and related services for database, analytics, intelligent technologies, and experience management. As a cloud company with 200 million users and more than 100,000 employees worldwide, we are purpose-driven and future-focused, with a highly collaborative team ethic and commitment to personal development. Whether connecting global industries, people, or platforms, we help ensure every challenge gets the solution it deserves. At SAP, we build breakthroughs, together.

We win with inclusion

SAP’s culture of inclusion, focus on health and well-being, and flexible working models help ensure that everyone – regardless of background – feels included and can run at their best. At SAP, we believe we are made stronger by the unique capabilities and qualities that each person brings to our company, and we invest in our employees to inspire confidence and help everyone realize their full potential. We ultimately believe in unleashing all talent and creating a better and more equitable world.
SAP is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to the values of Equal Employment Opportunity and provide accessibility accommodations to applicants with physical and/or mental disabilities. If you are interested in applying for employment with SAP and are in need of accommodation or special assistance to navigate our website or to complete your application, please send an e-mail with your request to Recruiting Operations Team: Careers@sap.com.
For SAP employees: Only permanent roles are eligible for the SAP Employee Referral Program, according to the eligibility rules set in the SAP Referral Policy. Specific conditions may apply for roles in Vocational Training.

Requisition ID: 353846  | Work Area: Consulting and Professional Services  | Expected Travel: 0 - 10%  | Career Status: Management  | Employment Type: Regular Full Time   | Additional Locations: #LI-Hybrid