Senior FI Specialist

Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG) is a global powerhouse in online travel, connecting millions of people with unforgettable experiences in over 220 countries and territories. With a market value of approximately $120 billion and a diverse portfolio of brands such as Booking.com, KAYAK, Priceline, Agoda.com and OpenTable, we’re committed to making it easier to explore everyone to experience the world.

Booking Holdings Bangalore is a cutting-edge Center of Excellence in Bangalore, India and a key arm of Booking Holdings Inc. Top talent from diverse backgrounds converge here to develop innovative solutions that drive Booking Holdings' brands and business units forward. We offer a vibrant and inclusive workplace that fosters creativity, growth and opportunities to make a real difference on a global scale.

From bustling cities to remote corners, Booking Holdings' travel brands span 220+ countries. Our FinTech team powers the financial engine behind this global network. We craft bespoke payment solutions, blending security with scalability. These tools empower our partners, fueling their growth and enhancing traveler experiences. By supporting our partners' success, we strengthen the foundation of our diverse travel ecosystem.

We are seeking a seasoned Senior FI Specialist (IC Role) with 15+ years of hands-on experience in SAP S/4HANA Finance (FICO) and enterprise architecture. Operating as a lead technical authority and individual contributor, you will drive the architectural blueprint, end-to-end solution design, and technical delivery of enterprise-scale Record-to-Report (R2R) platforms.

This role requires deep functional and technical expertise in SAP S/4HANA, high-volume transactional integrations (specifically with BRIM), and modern enterprise financial platforms. You will serve as the primary bridge between Finance leadership, Product Managers, Technical Architects, and System Integrators (SIs), shaping the future of our financial tech stack, safeguarding North Star Architecture (NSA) principles, and ensuring zero-defect accounting compliance across complex ERP transformation programs (including RISE with SAP).

What You’ll Be Doing

1. Architectural Leadership & Engineering Excellence

• Solution Architecture Ownership: Own the end-to-end architecture and solution design for SAP S/4HANA Finance (R2R) across all project phases (Explore, Realize, Deploy, Hypercare), ensuring strict alignment between core accounting principles, business requirements, and system scalability.

• Core FICO Domain Expertise: Drive design authority across core domains:

  • General Ledger (GL): Universal Journal (ACDOCA), parallel ledgers, document splitting, multi-currency frameworks, and financial close automation.
  • Asset Accounting (AA): Asset lifecycle management, multi-GAAP depreciation areas, and integration workflows.
  • Subledger Accounting (AP/AR & FICA): Business Partner and Contract Account master data, posting areas, main/sub configurations, payment processing, and open-item clearing.
  • Intercompany Accounting: Cross-entity netting, intercompany settlement routing, and period-end elimination matching.
  • Managerial Accounting (CO): Cost/Profit Center accounting, internal orders, margin analysis, and managerial reporting.

• ABAP & Technical Oversight: Conduct deep-code reviews, debugging, and root-cause analysis. Guide engineering teams on SAP programming best practices, performance tuning, and database optimization (ACDOCA/HANA views).

• WRICEF Governance & Clean Core: Review and validate WRICEF (Reports, Interfaces, Conversions, Enhancements, Forms) objects. Drive strict "Clean Core" standardization vs. customization decisions to minimize technical debt and avoid unnecessary custom builds.

• Design Governance & Quality Control: Review and sign off on Solution Design Documents (SDDs), Enterprise Structure Key Design Decisions (KDDs), and L3–L5 process maps. Ensure all designs meet strict audit readiness, SOX controls, and financial compliance standards.

2. Enterprise Integrations & Ecosystem Orchestration

• BRIM Integration: Drive deep integration designs between FI and SAP BRIM (Billing and Revenue Innovation Management) to ensure compliant order-to-cash, billing ingestion, and revenue accounting (IFRS 15) flows.

• Ecosystem Connectivity: Architect robust integration patterns connecting SAP with third-party and ecosystem platforms, including BlackLine (Intercompany Hub, SOX Certifications, Multi-Source Reconciliations), OneStream/FinDB, Snowflake data lakes, and custom middleware (MuleSoft API gateways).

• Reconciliation Integrity: Validate end-to-end data pipelines (Subledger ->GL -> Reporting platforms), ensuring complete financial reconciliation, zero data loss, and zero breaks in double-entry accounting logic.

3. SAP Transformation & RISE Implementation

• RISE Execution: Serve as the lead technical authority on large-scale programs such as RISE with SAP / S/4HANA transformation programs across Explore, Realize, Deploy, and Hypercare phases.

• System Integrator (SI) Challenge: Partner closely with System Integrators to validate, guide, and challenge proposed solutions, stopping rigid template-driven approaches that do not fit the enterprise's long-term architectural vision.

• Migration & Cutover: Oversee financial data migration strategies, cutover plans, parallel-run validations, and testing frameworks (SIT/UAT) from a technical finance standpoint.

4. Strategic Influence & Stakeholder Management

• Cross-Track Alignment: Act as an individual contributor thought-leader and bridge between Finance, Engineering, Product Management, and external partners, translating complex business requirements into elegant system behaviors.

• Domain Mentorship: Foster internal engineering/architectural capability by mentoring junior/mid-level engineers and architects on SAP S/4HANA best practices, integration patterns, and emerging technologies (e.g., AI/automation in month-end financial closing).

5. Innovation & Continuous Improvement

• Financial Process Automation & AI: Evaluate, architect, and prototype emerging automation technologies, including AI/ML use cases for intelligent anomaly detection, Business Process Automation, Document AI, automated cash application, AI-assisted month-end close (MEC) forecasting, and robotic process automation (RPA), to reduce manual finance effort and improve reporting accuracy.

• Architecture Evolution & "Clean Core": Continually assess technical debt across our SAP and connected ecosystems. Proactively design refactoring plans to decouple legacy custom code, migrating toward SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) services, standard APIs, and "Clean Core" extensibility patterns.

• Benchmarking & Tooling Optimization: Research industry best practices and stay ahead of the curve on vendor roadmaps (SAP S/4HANA releases, RISE updates, BlackLine innovations, BRIM enhancements). Identify opportunities to replace expensive custom builds with native out-of-the-box system capabilities.

• Engineering Thought Leadership: Act as a catalyst for continuous improvement within the engineering track by introducing automated testing frameworks for SAP, CI/CD pipeline enhancements for transport manager

What You’ll Be Bringing

• Experience: 15+ years of progressive experience in SAP Finance (FI/CO), with at least 7+ years in solution architecture, lead engineering, or technical authority roles.

• Role Focus: Proven track record as a high-impact Individual Contributor capable of driving architectural consensus without direct line management authority.

• S/4HANA Expertise: Successfully delivered 2 to 4 end-to-end S/4HANA greenfield/brownfield implementations or global rollouts, including international localization and multi-gap tax/regulatory requirements.

• Integration Track Record: Hands-on experience architecting FI integrations with SAP BRIM (Billing, Convergent Invoicing, FICA) and external subledgers/billing platforms.

• Transformation Experience: Direct architectural leadership in at least one full lifecycle RISE with SAP or S/4HANA Cloud deployment.

• Technical Depth: Expert-level capability in analyzing custom ABAP code, debugging standard/custom SAP flows, designing complex APIs/interfaces, and structuring custom data models.

Preferred Qualifications

• Deep familiarity with financial closing and reconciliation platforms such as BlackLine (ICH, Matching, Close Management) or OneStream.

• Strong understanding of modern reporting layers (SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP BTP, BI/BW, Snowflake).

• Familiarity with Agile/Scrum product management methodologies in enterprise software tracks.

• Exposure to financial process automation, machine learning in cash application, or AI-driven anomaly detection in financial close operations.

Where You’ll Be

This role offers a flexible hybrid model.

Pre-Employment Screening

If your application is successful, your personal data may be used for a pre-employment screening check by a third party as permitted by applicable law. Depending on the vacancy and applicable law, a pre-employment screening may include employment history, education and other information (such as media information) that may be necessary for determining your qualifications and suitability for the position.