SAP ABAP Senior Consultant interview questions

I've been an SAP ABAP consultant for eleven years, the last four in Oman. Started at an Indian SAP services firm doing ECC enhancements, moved into S/4HANA migrations, and for the past three years I've been senior ABAP consultant at an Omani group running SAP across three subsidiaries. My day-to-day covers reports, interfaces, conversions, enhancements (BADIs and user exits), and forms; plus increasingly Fiori and CDS view development for S/4HANA. I'm SAP-certified in ABAP for HANA. I work closely with functional consultants on Finance, HR, and Supply Chain modules.

Several disciplines. Always use SELECT with field list, never SELECT *. Use FOR ALL ENTRIES carefully with proper sorting and duplicate handling. Avoid SELECT inside loops; use range tables or hash tables. On HANA, push computation to the database layer through CDS views or AMDP rather than processing in ABAP. Use ABAP code inspector and runtime analysis on every significant program before transport. Performance tuning at the end is expensive; design for performance from the start.

Requirements: clarify the source system, the target, the data fields, the transformation logic, the frequency, the error handling. Design: RFC, IDoc, web service, or file-based depending on the interface type. Build the interface with proper error handling: every failure logged, alerts to support, retry logic where appropriate. Testing: unit test the transformation logic, then integration test end-to-end with sample data, then UAT with real data. Documentation: technical spec, operational runbook, and the dependency on each side. Interfaces fail silently more than other developments; logging is non-negotiable.

I've worked on two greenfield S/4HANA implementations and one brownfield migration. Greenfield is cleaner but loses historical context; brownfield preserves history but inherits legacy. For migrations: simplification check (which old custom code can be retired because standard now handles it), custom code remediation (functions deprecated or behaving differently), data migration via migration cockpit. I'd allocate at least 30% of timeline for custom code remediation; teams underestimate this consistently. Post-go-live performance tuning often takes another 2-3 months.

Functional consultants are my closest partners. I respect their domain knowledge; they respect my technical constraints. We work through requirements together rather than via document handoffs which always lose context. For business users I avoid jargon; 'I built a BADI implementation' means nothing to them; 'the approval workflow now follows your custom rules' lands. I'm available for questions even during testing; consultants who disappear after delivery create frustration.

For a senior ABAP consultant role in Oman I'd target OMR 1,700 to 2,200 total package depending on the consulting context (in-house team vs services firm) and project mix. S/4HANA expertise commands a premium over pure ECC work. I'm on 60 days' notice. Beyond pay I'd value the project quality; great projects build my career, mediocre ones erode skills.