Solved: Career after ABAP experience

Former Member · ‎2014 Sep 01

Hi all

I have 4 years experience as SAP ABAP Technical Consultant.
Currently working with a reputed IT company.
However , in my entire sap experience, I have worked only in support projects without much of learning.
Also, I have realized that I am not very comfortable with programming stuff since I neither got complete expertise nor the interest to work on.
Can anybody suggest me a suitable profile change within SAP but with a different technology/module

that I can take up so that my 4 years experience is utilized and also I get to move in a different technology other than abap?

How about new emerging technologies in SAP - HANA , Cloud , Mobility , UX ?
Any expert suggestions if I can move to SAP audit/GRC stream from here on?

Colleen · ‎2014 Sep 01

Hi Shalini

Without you going into specifics of what type of ABAP support work you have done it is a bit difficult.

I come from a GRC/Security background and the only thing you have in common with security (and some of the GRC Access Controls) - I hope - would be knowing how to properly restrict your code with authority checks and proper DB calls via function modules/etc.

If you were to move down a GRC/Audit path, unless you have some specific audit qualification you would need to start from the beginning. Depending on the support you did for ABAP you might have a specific function module that you supported and could consider transitioning to that (possibly you employer might let you as well).

Having an ABAP background could extend towards the user interfaces and workflow. HANA is a platform (you can read up more look at free courses by searching SCN, check openSAP.com, etc). If you do not like programming, would you like technical topics? There is HANA development (and a lot of resources if you search) but I doubt you would want to do that if you don't like ABAP.

Cloud is how software is hosted/available to the client. At the end of the day it's about the applications... unless you were in a technical area responsible for the hosting, etc.

My recommendation is to think about your strengths, do a little research and find out what opportunities are within your employer. Support work is not bad (I wrote a blog recently after being fed up that people assume support work means not opportunities). However, if you do not believe you have the experience or interest in ABAP, perhaps your employer sees that too and is therefore, reluctant to provide you with opportunities outside of support (like a project).

Regards

Colleen

Colleen · ‎2014 Sep 01

Hi Shalini

Without you going into specifics of what type of ABAP support work you have done it is a bit difficult.

I come from a GRC/Security background and the only thing you have in common with security (and some of the GRC Access Controls) - I hope - would be knowing how to properly restrict your code with authority checks and proper DB calls via function modules/etc.

If you were to move down a GRC/Audit path, unless you have some specific audit qualification you would need to start from the beginning. Depending on the support you did for ABAP you might have a specific function module that you supported and could consider transitioning to that (possibly you employer might let you as well).

Having an ABAP background could extend towards the user interfaces and workflow. HANA is a platform (you can read up more look at free courses by searching SCN, check openSAP.com, etc). If you do not like programming, would you like technical topics? There is HANA development (and a lot of resources if you search) but I doubt you would want to do that if you don't like ABAP.

Cloud is how software is hosted/available to the client. At the end of the day it's about the applications... unless you were in a technical area responsible for the hosting, etc.

My recommendation is to think about your strengths, do a little research and find out what opportunities are within your employer. Support work is not bad (I wrote a blog recently after being fed up that people assume support work means not opportunities). However, if you do not believe you have the experience or interest in ABAP, perhaps your employer sees that too and is therefore, reluctant to provide you with opportunities outside of support (like a project).

Regards

Colleen

Former Member · ‎2014 Sep 01

Hi Colleen

Thanks for your expert advise.

"Without you going into specifics of what type of ABAP support work you have done it is a bit difficult"

I have been mostly involved in doing support work involving bug fixing , changing few lines of codes here and there related to reports , enhancements , module pools etc. The work has been mostly repetitive changes .

Some amount of exposure to smart forms/catalog content management(SRM) has been there.

"Having an ABAP background could extend towards the user interfaces and workflow"

Can you please throw more light on that. What is the future and job prospects?

Thanks

Shalini

Former Member · ‎2014 Sep 01

Hi Shalini,

It is purely depends on your project and which company you work for. I remember, top CMM level companies have 1.5 years project assignment rotation and then you can move on to next project to scale up more onto SAP ABAP. If you look at any guys who has more years of experience, they always say I have to gain more knowledge deep into SAP ABAP like SAP WebDynpro, SAP ABAP OOPS concept etc.

You felt monotonous because you are doing same job like getting help desk, fix the code, perform unit testing, walk-through to functional and complete technical document.

You can ask your project manager to switch to next new implementation project that would enable you to make you more interesting into SAP ABAP.

Question for which technologies: You can do SAP HANA development or SAP Mobile or SAP UI5. SAP UI5 picked up very well now. You can check that too.

Instead of checking SAP GRC, you can check SAP IDM because SAP IDM very niche skill and slowly picking in the market.

Regards

GGOPII

Former Member · ‎2014 Sep 02

Thanks a lot for your valuable comments Gopi.

Waiting for some more inputs..

Former Member · ‎2014 Sep 02

Hi Shalini,

Your concerns seem a bit confusing. You want to change to something other than ABAP, but want to utilize your past 4 years as well


Can anybody suggest me a suitable profile change within SAP but with a different technology/module 
that I can take up so that my 4 years experience is utilized and also I get to move in a different technology other than abap?

You have spent around 4 years in ABAP so it might not be a good option to switch to an entirely differnet domain but enhancing your skills with the same domain and adding up more skiils with the similar domains would defiitely be a good option to opt.

Colleen's and Gopi's suggestions are good enough, you need change with your usual way of work and try to diversify yourself. Sometimes, it's not in our hand to get the work we normally wish to but that shouldn't stop us for aiming something higher. You can always try hard for other roles and responsibilities and it all depends on your interersts as well. You have to be interested in the work you are doing. SAP Mobile, HANA are always there to explore with your skill sets.

Rest is up to you to decide.

Regards,

Ameet

Former Member · ‎2014 Oct 29

Thanks for all the replies.