My suggestions on SAP ABAP transformation - a perspective from China

[dicksonjyl]

My suggestions on SAP ABAP transformation - a perspective from China

 

 

A Senior SAP ABAP consultant will always face the anxiety and entanglement of transformation or career change.

 

An SAP ABAPer need to know why he need to have a transformation for his career.

 

-Does he want to quit program development or SAP ABAP development consultant? If he does not want to write programs when he is old (more than 35 years old), and he does not want to be a programmer whether it is ABAP programming language or other programming languages. Then he can consider turning to SAP function consultant. After all, he has been engaged in ABAP development for many years. In his daily work, he needs to participate in the discussion of business processes of some functional modules, and he can understand and master a certain SAP module through the testing and research of functionalities. If an ABAP Consultant often works with FICO consultants to develop financial functionality, interface or report, it is natural to consider becoming an SAP FICO Consultant. If an ABAP Consultant is mainly engaged in the development of SAP logistics modules in his daily work, he can also consider changing to be a function consultant of SAP logistics modules. This is a transformation or career change within the SAP consulting field. It is not a cross-border business. The transformation pressure will not be too big, and the career change is more likely to succeed.

 

-Does he want to stop being an SAP Consultant, including SAP ABAP consultant and SAP function module consultant? If yes, it should be considered in combination with their own personality and other comprehensive factors. If he has strong management skill and excellent communication and coordination ability, he can naturally transform to management. Possible positions are SAP department manager, SAP project manager, SAP technical director etc. If he wants to change his technology field and do not want to play SAP any longer, you can consider several directions: big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence etc. These technical fields are not too cross-border for a senior SAP ABAP developer, and the possibility of changing careers is not small.

 

-Does he want to stop working on technology? If so, and if he feel that he is not very suitable for management, then there will be some trouble. Does he want to change his profession to deliver takeout? I believe that no matter how boring and uncomfortable SAP Technology is, it is more decent and dignified than delivering takeout. His parents spent a lot of money to trained him to go to college, not expected him to delivery takeout when he is older!

 

 

 

Transformation or career change should be based on the current major and personal advantages. It is possible to change careers across borders. This requires greater courage, and may experience more setbacks and entanglements. I do not suggest that a ABAPer completely break away from his major and change to a new industry or field that he is not familiar with. After all, if a novice in an industry is an older guy, it will always make people feel strange and unreliable. what you think?

 

 

Note:

This blog is based on the programmer career situation in China.  In China, many programmer which is older than 35 years old will face the difficulty of find new job, because many companies just want to hire the younger programmer. So many senior ABAP programmer or Java programmer will face the transformation issue in their career in China.

I know this situation does not exist in USA/Europe or other regions of the world.  So the senior ABAPer need not to change their career in those regions.

 

 

 

-The end-

 

Written in Suzhou on June 19, 2022.

 

[Prasenjitsbist]

I have nothing personal against you but I don't like the general tone of your blog and I believe it may be applicable for some not all. I find the age based generalization very ridiculous. I know many colleagues in my organization or at client side who are in 50s and still learning and writing codes better than we do. Also, the proposal that if you suck at coding or have started getting behind at learning curve move to Functional Consulting is also very wrong assessment. In my last 10+ years I have seen many such Functionals who were bad Technical and took the exact escape route you suggested and either they harmed their own careers or created nuisance in the lives of co workers and customers.

I do not know what is SAP's blogging policy here but these age based tones and segregation I find very abusive.

Finally to answer your question- the older novice in an industry will be treated as a garbage. Thank you!!!

[dicksonjyl]

Hello psbist0103,

 

Thanks a lot for your comments. I think I need to have below clarification.

 

This blog is based on the programmer career situation in China.  In China, many programmer which is older than 35 years old will face the difficulty of find new job, because many companies just want to hire the younger programmer. So many senior ABAP programmer or Java programmer will face the transformation issue in their career in China.

 

I know this situation does not exist in USA/Europe or other regions of the world.  So the senior ABAPer need  not to change their career in those regions. I hope this clarification can make you comfortable.

 

Dickson Jin.

[matt]

I'm so glad that I read it through to the end and saw the note! Perhaps modify the title to My suggestions on SAP ABAP transformation - a perspective from China

[matt]

It's sad that in China the management want only younger programmers. The so-called Cult of Youth is a really stupid, short-term, blinkered and, most importantly for businesses, costly attitude - where ever it appears in the world (and yes it does exist in the West!). The older programmers in a company know the systems intimately. If something goes wrong, they can very quickly find the point of error, and fix it. A younger programmer will take longer, and be more likely to make a costly mistake. Encouraging older (good) programmers to stay in development means that you'll get higher quality development at lower cost. These are established facts.

I don't know if China is a hierarchical society, but certainly the hierarchy of Developer at the bottom, then next level being Functional and so on, is also very bad for the quality of development.

I worked in a company that off-shored all its programming. It was interesting to see that though the project had been running ten years, there was no-one in the development team who was really very good. Why? The good ones would, after two years, move into functional - it was their only hope for career progression.. Only the bad ones, who couldn't move up remained. There was no continuity - the project hemorrhaged system knowledge.

Funny thing, I'm 53 now and I'm finding it ever easier to try out and master new technology. I think the reason is that in my 30+ year career, I've discovered there's very little new under the sun. Just new terminology.

[dicksonjyl]

nice advice. I have updated the title. Thanks a lot !

[Prasenjitsbist]

Hi dicksonjyl Well thanks that you added the footnote now. Sad to know China  has such discriminations at workplace. Wish you good luck!!! Though the main objective is capitalism IMO, younger less experienced lower salary i.e. the mantra everywhere all over the globe not just China.

So, some one has to be super lucky to be working in 1/2 modules and master it over a period of time to become a good Functional Consultant. For most of us in Consulting/ Services it is rather tough as I and many like me worked on so many modules  and products, in our career and never mastered something in depth.... sometimes it is good but not if you plan to be a good solutions architect or something like that.

Tk,

PSB