Ask HN: How do you get into a niche field like SAP development?

What level in your career are you at? If you're recently out of school, the easiest way I know of is to get hired into one of the big 4 consulting firms. (eg: PwC, Accenture, etc). Associates are hired with little experience - related experience is fine. If you're more senior, possibly take an "around the edges" approach - or specialize in the underlying integration technology (eg: java, etc...whatever it is). Creating a plugin or similarly deep diving if you can get into their developer / customer program. If you're wanting to go into it because of salaries - I understand that. Realize what you're getting into. The salaries may be higher - but the work may be un-relentingly boring. You might also look into competitors in the space that are more SaaS'y, and less Enterprise footprint-y.

I work in that very field, so I hope this input will be useful to you:

There's no one thing called "SAP" anymore. It's many platforms, ranging from the old ERP (with its ABAP programming language) to CRM to HR to E-commerce. With the exception of its proprietary tools (like ABAP), you can certainly leverage your Java/JS skills.

If you have access to SAP training (though it's neither cheap nor easily accessible), get some training on the dev tools and find beginner-level openings in companies or consulting firms. (Reality check: the latter will be harder - you are competing with a truly global developer-base for SAP.)

If you don't have access to training, then drop the proprietary ABAP route and stick to Java. You can apply those skills in SAP's more open stacks for e-commerce, mobile etc.

The public sector (Federal/State governments, public utilities, military etc) are also big SAP users and are often hard-pressed to find US citizens (assuming you are a US citizen). That may be another avenue to explore.

You work for a company that uses / consults for SAP, and they either give you training or send you off to get trained. It's the same way with most of the big ERP systems.

if you are clever, you will probably suffer from over-corporate environment and seeing customers being milked because of vendor-lockin (aka morality, not so common feature as I would like).

if you want enterprise, high salaries and don't mind/welcome wearing a suit every day, I suggest rather JEE - backend never dies in one way or another, and it is actually a very interesting field to live in.

IMHO one merge/market crash might gradually wipe the SAP market much easier rather Java.

Work for a solutions provider. Get yourself on a SAP project and ask for SAP training alongside. Work your way up. At some point you'll be senior enough to leave an get yourself lucrative contracting gigs.

A friend of mine was recently recruited by company implementing SAP/ABAP technology stack for their clients. He has been interviewed mostly solving problems via Java and SQL.

You said "like" SAP, not SAP only, so let me suggest Cobol. It's a language we rarely hear about but it is an exotic niche that could also pay well. Well, this is just an idea, I'm not an expert on Cobol.

Starting in an analyst, support, or end-user role is a good way to get exposure. Or try working with a small boutique consulting firm as an alternative to the big guys, you may get more variety of experience.

Understanding the business processes supported by the application will set you apart from other developers. It is common to find developers without business process or functional experience, and visa versa. If you have some of both types of experience it will set you apart.

Source: I started as an accountant and ERP end-user, moved to a functional analyst role, and am currently working as a data engineer.

Aren't we seeing more and more companies (especially smaller companies who could never afford SAP to begin with) move towards programs like JIRA, and achieving much of the same.

Where would JIRA (including its wealth of plugins) lack in terms of what SAP can offer?

Join a consultancy firm that specializes in that area, many will hire people with zero experience in the area and train them up. It's also the best place to learn as you'll be exposed to many different deployments.

Others have covered that the usual path is to first have a job that sends you to SAP training. That could be an entry level job at a consultancy, or a job at a Fortune 500 that uses SAP...where the initial job isn't specifically SAP, but you find a way to get onto the project.

It would be difficult to do that any other way, as the setup costs to have your own SAP environment to learn on are prohibitively high.

That said, there are other niches where the environment and tools are available to you at a reasonable cost. You can, for example, sign up for a Salesforce.com developer account. Perhaps not SAP niche level salaries to be had, but Salesforce experience is in demand.

Just one example though...generally, search for niches with a reasonable way to get access to the platform if you want to gain some experience on your own. Other ideas might be single-sign-on/kerberos/saml/oauth, devops (puppet, chef, docker, etc) or specific e-commerce shopping cart software (magento, for example). Keep in mind though, light experience will likely only help landing an entry level spot.

>How do you break into a career in a niche field like SAP development.

OH GOD WHY? Have you used SAP? SAP is the most expensive pile of shit I have ever seen. No company in their right mind would deploy such a system at this point in time.

A couple years ago, SAP courses were offered at my university; that should be an interesting route for students, but might also work for people who live close by - the explicit goal is to create more SAP programmers, and filling an open seat in a course that would happen anyway isn't expensive for SAP.

man ABAP gives me night terrors

friends of mine are working in the SAP domain. They just got hired for junior consulting positions at SAP consulting companies (smaller ones). There they got the (expensive) trainings for some of the SAP modules, which they then use to implement customer solutions.

From what I see here in germany there are lots of these positions available, since SAP is everywhere. It seems to pay slightly better then average developer jobs, but as consultants the people there are often away on business.

As an SAP (ABAP and web) developer: I stumbled upon an internship 10 years ago which provided me with some formal training and a company to work for. It's not an easy specialty to get into. Most developers I know are either converted key users or the old school mainframe type guys since ABAP resembles COBOL in it's syntax. The younger ones generally come in through the large consulting companies who move massive amounts of juniors around to see who fits where. Think IBM, wipro, TCS.

These days it's a little bit easier because you can get developer editions of HANA for free, and their front end framework is open source (UI5).

Study the new SAP systems like SAP HANA, SAP S/4HANA, or SAP Fiori. SAP moved from R/2 -> R/3 -> SAP ERP -> SAP S/4HANA. It is always easier to jump on the new wave than try to compete with experts with decades of experience in a system.

SAP and such ERP systems are where developers go to die. That's what happens when your bag of luck runs out, and you haven't filled your bag of skills yet. Try something else. If you want to make real money, start a business. Hourly wages only go so high.