How to become a SAP developer in South Africa
Becoming a qualified SAP developer in South Africa can open up numerous job opportunities.
A quick search on LinkedIn for “SAP developer” will show over 100 available positions at major banks like Absa, FNB, and Nedbank and auditing firms Deloitte, EY, and PWC.
According to recruiting firm Indeed, the average monthly salary for an SAP ABAP developer was R86,301 in Johannesburg, R73,051 in Pretoria, and R53,772 in Cape Town, as of early February 2023.
SAP offers a wide range of products that are critical in the operations of large organisations — including customer service management, ERP Cloud service management, and asset performance management.
MyBroadband asked SAP about the qualifications and experience someone would need to become a developer for its platforms.
SAP developer requirements have changed drastically over the past two decades.
“20 years ago, SAP had a ‘closed’ system, and developers had to learn ABAP (an SAP-only programming language) and SQL,” the company explained.
“SAP systems truly ran on most platforms, hardware, operating systems, and databases. Therefore, you wrote the code once, and it would literally run on more than seven variations of Unix (including Linux), five different databases, and many hardware combinations.”
But about ten years ago, SAP shifted its focus to the cloud, and its development skills became more mainstream.
These days, it is beneficial for aspiring SAP developers to know the basics of cloud development, JavaScript (with Node.js), HTML & CSS, SQL, Git, and other languages and tools.
“Most mainstream development tools are now used within the SAP environment,” the company said.
SAP S/4HANA dashboards
SAP said anyone with a technical tertiary qualification, such as a bachelor’s degree in computer science, information systems, or other related fields, would find it easy to become an SAP developer.
To become a proficient SAP developer, you must gain knowledge of SAP modules like SAP FICO, SAP MM, or SAP SD.
“Gaining experience in SAP development is critical to becoming an SAP developer,” the company said. “You can gain experience by participating in SAP projects or internships.”
There are numerous types of SAP certifications you can acquire, including:
- SAP Certified Development Associate
- SAP Certified Development Professional
- SAP Certified Development Associate
- SAP Business Technology Platform
- SAP Certified Development Professional
- SAP Business Technology Platform
- SAP Certified Development Specialist
- SAP Business Technology Platform
SAP also believes that developers must possess excellent communication skills and problem-solving abilities.
Building a professional network can also help you find SAP developer jobs in South Africa.
“Attend SAP conferences and meetups and connect with other SAP developers and professionals,” the company recommended.
How to get SAP-certified
To get an SAP certification, you can attend physical or virtual classroom-based learning through one of several accredited South African training institutions.
The complete list of courses and training entities can be found on the SAP Training website after selecting South Africa as your location.
At the time of publication, there were 1,370 SAP courses available to take in South Africa.
An alternative option is the self-paced learning available on the SAP learning hub and the company’s free learning resources at https://learning.sap.com.
SAP announced late last year that it aimed to upskill two million developers by 2025 by tripling the number of free learning journeys available on this website.
It also introduced a partnership with Coursera to provide additional learning opportunities.
In addition, fee courses are also available on open.sap.com, while YouTube hosts tutorials explaining the basics of the software.
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