Principal/Lead Network Engineer — SAP RISE

Our team members are at the heart of everything we do. At Cencora, we are united in our responsibility to create healthier futures, and every person here is essential to us being able to deliver on that purpose. If you want to make a difference at the center of health, come join our innovative company and help us improve the lives of people and animals everywhere. Apply today!

Job Details Summary We are seeking a Principal/Lead Network Engineer — SAP RISE to serve as the senior technical leader and architect responsible for designing, implementing, and operationalizing the enterprise network infrastructure that will enable the migration of Cencora’s SAP environment from on-premises data centers to SAP RISE . This is a program-critical role SAP is the backbone of our supply chain, and the network is the foundational layer that determines the performance, availability, and security of the migrated workloads. You will own the end-to-end network architecture — from private connectivity into Azure, through the SAP RISE managed environment, and back to on-premises users, distribution centers, and integrated systems — ensuring that latency, throughput, redundancy, and security requirements are met at every stage of the migration journey. The ideal candidate combines deep Azure networking expertise with an understanding of SAP application network dependencies and the executive presence to drive decisions across a complex, multi-stakeholder program.

Primary Focus Enterprise network architecture for SAP RISE on Azure migration, hybrid connectivity design, application-aware network optimization, strategic technology leadership, and cross-functional program execution.

Key Responsibilities Network Architecture for SAP RISE on Azure

• Design the end-to-end network architecture that connects Cencora’s on-premises data centers, corporate offices, distribution centers, and cloud environments to the SAP RISE on Azure managed infrastructure — ensuring the architecture meets SAP’s stringent latency, bandwidth, and availability requirements.
• Architect Azure network topology — design and implement Azure Virtual Networks (VNets), hub-and-spoke or Azure Virtual WAN (vWAN) topologies, network security groups (NSGs), route tables (UDRs), Azure Firewall / NVA placement, and private DNS zones to support the SAP RISE landing zone.
• Design private connectivity between Cencora’s data centers and Azure — leveraging Azure ExpressRoute (with appropriate SKUs, peering configurations, Global Reach, and redundancy models) and/or site-to-site VPN as backup, ensuring sufficient bandwidth and sub-millisecond failover for mission-critical SAP traffic.
• Implement SAP RISE cross-VNet / cross-tenant connectivity — architect the network peering, private endpoint, or VNet injection models required to connect Cencora’s Azure subscription with the SAP-managed RISE tenant, in collaboration with SAP’s RISE delivery team and in accordance with SAP’s reference architecture.
• Optimize network performance for SAP workloads — design traffic engineering strategies that ensure SAP GUI, Fiori, RFC/BAPI, IDoc, BW, and database replication traffic meets latency and throughput SLAs; leverage Azure proximity placement groups, accelerated networking, and ExpressRoute FastPath where applicable.
• Architect hybrid DNS resolution — design DNS forwarding and private DNS zone strategies that enable seamless name resolution between on-premises systems, Cencora Azure resources, and the SAP RISE environment.
• Design secure network segmentation — implement micro-segmentation, NSG policies, Azure Firewall rules, and private endpoints to ensure SAP workloads are isolated from general-purpose cloud traffic and compliant with Cencora’s security standards and regulatory requirements (HIPAA, SOX).
• Plan and implement network connectivity for SAP integration points — ensure network paths are optimized and secured for critical SAP integrations including:SAP-to-SAP interfaces (e.g., S/4HANA to BW/4HANA, SLT, CPI/BTP)SAP-to-third-party integrations (EDI partners, banks, logistics carriers)SAP-to-on-premises systems (legacy middleware, file shares, print services)SAP Fiori / Web Dispatcher access for end users across offices and distribution centers. Basis team remote administration and SAP Solution Manager connectivity
• Design for high availability and disaster recovery — architect geo-redundant ExpressRoute circuits, Azure Availability…