How does a Junior SAP consultant end up helping develop SAP products themselves?
At LeverX, careers in SAP consulting don’t always follow predictable paths. Some specialists deepen their expertise within implementation projects, while others gradually find themselves contributing to the evolution of SAP solutions themselves.
Tatsiana Paramonava’s journey is one example. Over the past seven years, she has moved from a Junior SAP PPDS Consultant to a Product Owner working directly with SAP development teams, helping shape functionality that will later be used by companies around the world.
But when Tatsiana first joined LeverX, she didn’t expect her career to develop in that direction.
“When I came to LeverX, I realized that what I knew was only a very small part of the system.”
Before joining LeverX, Tatsiana worked on the client side at Coca-Cola Beverages. She was part of the production planning department and acted as a key SAP user during the company’s SAP implementation.
“We went through training, tested the system, and then trained our local users,” she recalls.
After the system went live, she continued working with SAP, supporting colleagues and helping maintain the planning processes inside the company.
At that point, she understood SAP from the perspective of someone using the system in daily operations. But over time, she began to feel that she had reached a certain ceiling.
“I realized that in the company I already knew everything about SAP from the production planning perspective,” she says. “I wanted something new.”
When she saw an opening for an SAP consultant role at LeverX, she decided to try something different, even though it meant starting almost from scratch.
Working as a consultant turned out to be very different from working as a key user.
At Coca-Cola, Tatsiana had used a system that was already configured for the company’s processes. At LeverX, she had to learn how those processes were built inside SAP.
“I knew the system and the processes only as they were configured for our business,” she explains. “But when I came here, I realized that it was only a small part.”
The first months required a lot of learning.
“I didn’t even know the customizing transaction,” she says with a smile. “I started from there.”
With the help of a mentor and more experienced colleagues, she began to understand how planning logic is created in SAP: configuring processes, testing scenarios, and gradually gaining confidence.
“I started building processes in the system myself, completely different from what I had seen before.”
Step by step, she grew into the role of an SAP consultant.
Like many consultants, Tatsiana’s real learning happened during projects.
In her early months at LeverX, she participated in pilot implementations and workshops where the team demonstrated PPDS functionality to potential clients.
“We had workshops where customers came with their requirements,” she says. “We would spend three days configuring the system and then show them the result.”
During these projects, Tatsiana worked closely with experienced consultants, learning how to translate real production processes into planning logic inside SAP.
Over time, she also began working with very different industries.
“I worked on projects for snack production, automotive manufacturing… completely different industries,” she says. “It was interesting to see how different production processes can be.”
Each new project brought new challenges and new learning opportunities.
One opportunity in particular changed the direction of Tatsiana’s career.
At one point, LeverX joined a project connected to SAP’s own development work, involving collaboration with SAP engineering teams. LeverX consultants worked together with SAP specialists on a PPDS implementation for a Fortune 100 client.
“Since we were working in an SAP division, we communicated with SAP engineering teams,” she says. “Over time we got to know some of the colleagues there.”
That collaboration eventually led to a new opportunity. Today, Tatsiana works as a Product Owner contributing to the development of standard SAP PPDS functionality.
In her current role, Tatsiana helps translate real production planning requirements into functionality that developers can implement.
“We discuss the requirements with product management, explain how the functionality should work, and then pass this to the architects and developers.”
Once new functionality is implemented, it goes through extensive testing, including special partner testing sessions where consultants from different companies evaluate new features.
That stage is one of Tatsiana’s favorites. “They come with their own experience from different industries,” she says. “They test the product and share what should be improved.”
Sometimes their feedback leads to completely new ideas. “You suddenly think: ‘Oh, right — why not? Why didn’t I notice that before?’ ”
Through this process, new PPDS functionality gradually becomes part of the global SAP product.
Even though she now works closely with product development teams, Tatsiana still feels deeply connected to PPDS consulting work.
For her, production planning has a unique intensity. “It’s a different kind of adrenaline.”
Unlike many IT systems, production planning software is directly connected to real-world operations. “We are not just responsible for numbers in the system,” she explains. “It’s important that real production does not stop.”
If something goes wrong in planning, the financial consequences can be immediate. That responsibility can feel intense but it is also what makes the work meaningful.
Looking back, Tatsiana describes her career path as something that developed naturally over time.
“I don’t know,” she says with a smile. “It all happened in the process.”
What began as a junior consulting role gradually evolved into collaboration with SAP product teams and participation in the development of functionality used by companies around the world.
For consultants interested in production planning, her journey shows how far expertise can take you.
As Tatsiana puts it: “Don’t be afraid of complexity. It’s difficult, but it’s interesting.”