SAP Basis and Security Specialist

Company Description

Who we are. At Mercer International Inc., we are realizing our vision of transforming biomass into bioproducts for a more sustainable world every day. We are a diversified global producer of forest products, bioproducts, and green electricity with operations in Canada, Germany, and the United States. We have a consolidated annual production capacity of approximately 2.2 million tonnes of kraft pulp, 550 million board feet of softwood lumber, and over 250,000 cubic metres of mass timber products (cross-laminated timber and glulam).

What we believe. We believe that a culture of diversity and inclusion is critical in making the best decisions for our people and achieving sustainable business success. Together, we encourage, support, and celebrate our employees' diverse voices. We strive to provide an inclusive culture by fostering an environment of mutual respect, fairness, and by providing opportunities to contribute and grow.

Position Description

The SAP Basis and Security Specialist plays a pivotal role in maintaining, securing, and modernizing Mercer's enterprise ERP environment. Operating as an integral member of Mercer's global SAP technical organization, this role shares operational responsibilities with peer specialists based in Germany while serving as the primary technical voice and advocate for North American business units and operating realities.

Reporting directly to and mentored by the SAP Senior Solutions Architect, this position offers a direct path for technical career progression into enterprise architecture. The Specialist will balance global SAP administration and security governance with tailored technical solutions for North American operations across functional domains such as Procurement, Plant Maintenance, and Finance (FICO). Additional responsibilities include facilitating GCP data lake pipelines, supporting RISE with SAP operations on GCP, and contributing to the deployment of SAP Fiori and SAP Joule AI.

Responsibilities

Global Collaboration & Regional Representation (25%)

• Collaborates closely with equivalent SAP technical peers in Germany to establish unified global administration standards, security baselines, and operational workflows.
• Represents North American operational, technical, and regulatory requirements within global SAP architecture and governance forums.
• Shares operational responsibility across the global team to maintain system stability, optimize global support coverage, and ensure knowledge redundancy.

SAP Security & Role Governance (25%)

• Designs, configures, and maintains SAP authorization concepts, security roles, and user access models across S/4HANA, Fiori, and connected platforms.
• Enforces global Segregation of Duties (SoD) and compliance standards while adapting access configurations to North American business workflows.
• Translates functional requirements from Procurement, Plant Maintenance, and Finance (FICO) teams into secure role definitions and Fiori Launchpad setups.

SAP Basis & RISE Operations (20%)

• Acts as the North American technical coordinator for RISE with SAP on GCP, working alongside German peers and SAP Cloud Managed Services.
• Oversees transport management (STMS), system refreshes, patch governance, and cutover activities during and after cloud migration phases.
• Monitors platform health, interface stability, and system performance across North American and global instances.

GCP Data Pipeline & Integration Facilitation (15%)

• Facilitates technical pipelines extracting SAP data into Mercer’s Google Cloud Platform (GCP) enterprise data lake, BI, and AI analytics platforms.
• Partners with regional data owners and global engineers to build efficient extraction models (e.g., CDS Views, OData, SAP SLT).

SAP Fiori & Joule AI Implementation (15%)

• Contributes to global and regional deployments of SAP Fiori applications, SAP Joule AI, and SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) services.
• Partners with external System Integrators (SIs) to review technical specifications, conduct quality assurance, and drive business adoption of new capabilities.

Qualifications and Experience

• Education: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent academic and experiential learning in Computer Science, Information Technology, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• Experience: 3-5+ years of hands-on experience in SAP technical roles, with demonstrated domain expertise in SAP Security/Authorizations and Basis administration within a global enterprise context.
• Location & Work Model: Located in or willing to relocate to the Metro Vancouver, BC area; able to work in a hybrid office environment.

Technical & Interpersonal Proficiencies:

• Global Work Environment: Proven experience working within matrixed, multinational IT organizations and sharing operational tasks across international time zones (specifically Europe/Germany).
• SAP Security & Basis: Strong expertise in S/4HANA role design, authorization objects, SU24, Fiori security, STMS, and cloud-hosted SAP environments (RISE with SAP on GCP highly preferred).
• Data & Integration: Experience facilitating SAP data extraction pipelines into GCP data architectures (BigQuery, Looker, GCP AI services).
• Modern SAP Stack: Hands-on exposure to Fiori administration, BTP environments, and emerging AI tools (SAP Joule).
• Cross-Functional Alignment: Demonstrated ability to bridge North American business requirements with global technical standards established by international architecture teams.

Benefits

• The salary for this position is $120,000-$140,000 CAD. Salary will be commensurate with education and experience.
• Our group benefits package includes extended health and dental benefits, in addition to a PPE allowance and a fitness allowance.
• RRSP - We provide a competitive RRSP contribution plan, with personal contributions matched by the company up to a certain %.