| The SAP Mentor Spotlight Interview Series highlights key strategic topics, such as emerging technologies, learning, and other topics, and provides insights from Mentors and SAP leaders on turning ideas into innovative approaches that impact people, process, and technology. |
Throughout the co-innovation process, discovering end user and cross-team needs is critical. Engaging end users to identify and understand their pain points, and learn about their requirements, is key.
Many organizations realize that including User Experience (UX) as an integral part of their development initiatives and finding solutions for use cases helps adopt an experience mindset to solve high priority challenges and issues.
Success is centered on attention to details. These details go beyond the look and feel, but rather on the quality of the user experience shaped by usability, accessibility and performance all working together.
For Krishna Kishor Kammaje, SAP Mentor, Instructor, SAP Press Author, and SAP application architect at Convergent IS, he has a time-tested track record of addressing the user experience. His expertise ranges from SAP Fiori, SAP UI5, SAP ABAP, SAP Business Technology Platform, and many other technologies to develop and execute successful digital transformation initiatives.
It was great to catch-up and share a few insights.
Anne Petteroe (AP): From your time at SDM College of Engineering and Technology to today, what initially sparked your interest to start developing apps which ultimately led you to your current role as an SAP Application Architect at Convergent IS?
Krishna Kammaje (KK): When I graduated in 2003 as an electronics and communications engineer, I knew nothing about SAP. Thanks to my first employer, Wipro Technologies, I was trained on SAP 
ABAP.
However, it was in 2011 when SAP’s technologies started gaining my attention and I started to heavily invest my time and energy in SAP products and solutions. This was due to SAP’s tilt towards open-source standards and technologies like REST, OData, and JavaScript based User Interface (UI).
I was happy to see SAP’s transition from proprietary technologies to open-source and not reinventing the wheel. I also took advantage of a great opportunity to work on SAP Gateway product development with SAP colleagues. After doing Fiori consulting for couple of years in the US, I returned to India and joined the SAP world as an SAP application architect at Convergent IS.
AP: How did you become an SAP Mentor? What does it mean to you to be in this program?
KK: When I was working as a contractor at SAP Labs on the Gateway product development team, the management encouraged us to answer user’s questions in the SAP Community. I started blogging about various technical experiences in the platform.
The feedback was very encouraging, and gradually people started recognizing me in events like TechEd. Meanwhile, I received an invite for the SAP Mentor program, and I hesitantly thought “this may not work…”. But it did! And to me, becoming an SAP Mentor is a recognition for my community contributions and an opening for more opportunities to continue what I am doing.
AP: You’re a very passionate developer and architect who enjoys getting things done. Currently, you teach a course on Udemy called “SAP Fiori Simplified: For ABAPers.” When did you decide that you wanted to become an instructor? How has the role of teaching helped you in your day-to-day work?
KK: I have always loved teaching. As I progressed in my career as a Fiori consultant, I realized that many ABAP developers want to make the same transition; however, they find it tough to do so. Since I completely taught myself the Fiori skills, in addition to a non-computer science background, I knew all the difficulties of making the transition. I thought that this training would be a great opportunity for me to help the ABAP developers, and the course was received very well. The experience of building and teaching this course made me rethink and question the UI5 concepts and helped me to solidify many other concepts.
AP: As the author of the acclaimed SAP Press Book, SAP Fiori Certification Guide, what helped you rise from learning about SAP Fiori and related UI as an application architect, to sharing expertise around core concepts including SAP Fiori architecture, configuration, and security?
KK: It was always a dream of mine to become a published author. So, I was ecstatic when I was approached by the SAP Press team who invited me to author the Fiori Certification Guide. I was pleasantly surprised and quickly snatched that opportunity up with both hands. Since I was already into technical content creation in terms of blogs and Udemy training, it was not too challenging for me to write this book. However, it was an interesting experience, and recently I released the second, updated version of the book.
AP: Now that you are focusing on the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) extension suite, how do you compare the experience of executing BTP extension projects compared to executing traditional SAP projects? What are the key points for successful BTP projects?
KK: First thing to note is that BTP applications have lot of moving parts, or dependencies. It is very important to architect loose coupling between them to ensure that the app works, even if some dependencies fail. Application logging is also a key non-functional requirement to ensure that failing points are quickly identified and rectified.
Having multiple dependencies also means that you must have the involvement of multiple teams. Communication between these teams is more important than ever in order to execute a successful SAP BTP project.
AP: When you encounter students and recent graduates who are interested in a UI and application development career, what tips do you share with them to help them develop strong skills and land high-quality jobs?
KK: For new developers, I would recommend investing efforts in learning open-source tools and technologies. Whenever you work on enterprise products, ensure that they are based on open-source technologies and industry best practices. That way you can change the domain and product easily without having to learn another set of proprietary technologies.
Also, as you learn programming, think about ‘clean code approach’. Ensure that unit testing and version control are taken care of. Lastly, I would recommend the ‘Clean Code’ series of books from Robert C. Martin.
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