Job Title : SAP Cloud ERP Release
Environment Management Lead
Location : Chicago, IL
Rate : ***k *** Subcon rate : ***/hr on C2C
Role Overview
Cloud ERP Release Lead Owns enterprise release governance and application environment coordination for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and connected ERP applications. Establish predictable release trains, configuration synchronization, regression readiness, environment/instance strategy, rebaselining and merge coordination for dependent workstreams, operational change controls, and adoption of SAP cloud releases without assuming infrastructure responsibilities retained by SaaS providers.
Key Responsibilities
Own the integrated ERP release calendar across SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and connected enterprise applications.
Define release governance, entry/exit criteria, cutover controls, deployment approvals, rollback/contingency planning, and hypercare expectations.
Coordinate SAP Public Cloud release and upgrade impact assessment, including feature review, regression scope, post-upgrade testing, and business readiness.
Own application environment strategy across development/configuration, test, quality, and production-aligned landscapes, including purpose, refresh/rebaseline principles, access, and scheduling.
Coordinate configuration synchronization and deployment sequencing across the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 3-system landscape where applicable.
Manage rebaselining and environment merge plans for parallel workstreams, ensuring changes are reconciled, tested, traceable, and promoted through approved paths.
Maintain release dependency maps spanning configuration, extensions, integrations, data, security roles, workflows, and connected SaaS products.
Chair release readiness reviews and drive closure of unresolved defects, testing gaps, data dependencies, and operational readiness actions.
Coordinate release packaging and deployment activities with functional, technical, integration, data, security, and vendor teams.
Own production change windows, freeze periods, emergency-change governance, and post-deployment verification.
Establish release metrics, defect leakage reporting, deployment success measures, and continuous improvement actions.
Maintain authoritative release plans, environment calendars, configuration baselines, change records, and deployment evidence.
Partner with QA to define regression strategy, automated-test coverage, upgrade-test execution, and risk-based test scope.
Coordinate business communications for planned releases, outages/limitations, validation needs, and post-release status.
Manage operational handoff from project delivery into steady-state support and ensure support teams receive runbooks and known-error information.
Escalate provider/SAP release risks, environment constraints, or cross-team conflicts with clear business impact and decision options.
SAP / Product-Specific Responsibilities
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition release lifecycle, feature adoption, testing, upgrade-test capabilities, and 3-system landscape configuration synchronization.
SAP Central Business Configuration and supported configuration deployment processes where applicable.
SAP Cloud ALM or enterprise ALM tooling for release, test, defect, and change traceability where deployed.
Connected SaaS release coordination for SAP Ariba, SAP Fieldglass, SAP BTP/Integration Suite, Deltek Replicon, and other integrated applications.
Environment rebaseline/merge coordination applies to customer-managed configuration, code, integration artifacts, test data/plans, and parallel delivery baselines not SAP-operated SaaS infrastructure.
Operational Responsibilities
Operate a repeatable release train with clear release cutoffs, readiness gates, production validation, and hypercare.
Maintain an environment calendar that prevents collision among testing, data loads, configuration deployments, and integration changes.
Drive emergency change discipline and root-cause review for failed deployments.
Continuously improve release predictability, automation, documentation, and regression coverage.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
ERP product owners, functional leads, SAP technical/BTP teams, Integration, Data Migration, Security/IAM, QA/Test, PMO, Operations/Service Management, business process owners, SAP support, and SI/vendor teams.
Required Qualifications
Bachelor s degree or equivalent experience in Information Systems, Engineering, Computer Science, or related discipline.
8+ years in enterprise application release, environment, change, or operations management; 3+ years in S/4HANA-era programs preferred.
Experience coordinating cloud/SaaS releases and complex integrated ERP landscapes.
Strong knowledge of change control, regression testing, cutover, incident/problem management, and production governance.
Demonstrated ability to coordinate multiple delivery teams without conflating release governance with functional configuration ownership.
Required Technical / Functional Skills
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition release/upgrade and landscape concepts.
3-system landscape configuration synchronization and SAP Central Business Configuration concepts.
Release planning, environment calendars, rebaselining/merge governance, cutover, rollback, hypercare, and emergency change.
Test management, regression strategy, defect management, and operational readiness.
ITIL-aligned change/release/service management and ALM tooling.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience with SAP Cloud ALM, ServiceNow, Azure DevOps/Jira, or comparable enterprise release tooling.
Experience coordinating SAP Ariba, Fieldglass, BTP/Integration Suite, and non-SAP SaaS releases alongside S/4.
ITIL 4 Foundation and/or current SAP learning credentials related to SAP S/4HANA Cloud implementation, operations, or SAP Cloud ALM.