I do believe into Software Architecture

Recently, interesting post by Sergey Mikhanov sparkled vivid discussion about Software Architects, and Software Architecture in general. While Sergey’s post holds title bit controversial title, it spotted pretty valid problems. At first, I wanted answer Sergey’s post directly, but after while I thought my answer is little bit long. So here it is.

To make long story short: I do believe into real Software Architects. Unfortunately there is no single, agreed upon definition what Software Architect actually is. And that’s the problem Sergey spotted. The Software Architect role is not only often unclear, sometimes blurry, but worse, has depreciated over the years. The part of the problem is lack of formal definition, but other part is that often this title means nothing, except somebody, somewhere thought it would be nice to put such a ‘Software Architect’ tag on somebody’s visit card. It’s not uncommon to become Software Architect overnight, just because one finished few projects successfully in a row or did something extraordinary like that. That’s the problem. I see this recurring pattern especially in consulting companies. You can earn Architect title for nothing.

What makes somebody the Software Architect? It’s not a title on a visit card definitely. Fortunately I have met brilliant software architects during my life and actually only few of them hold ‘Software Architect’ moniker. If I had to point out one, single quality those sharp guys had in common – it would be: Big Picture. They had seen Big Picture; the whole thing. Be it module (Software Architect), single system (System Architect), whole solution (Solution Architect), some problem domain (Domain Architect) or even whole corporation (Enterprise Architect). They had this rare ability of seeing that thing, they were working on, was not just simple sum of parts, it was something more – the whole thing. In every possible aspect: functional, non functional, technical and, yes, business. And they were steering others into the right direction. With their help, things went smoothly and everybody felt much more comfortable. That was precious and encouraging. They were Lead Developers, Senior Developers, some of them where Analysts, and few of them were actually ‘Architects’. So I should have actually said: I believe into Software Architecture, not necessary into Architects. Show me one, and I can tell if he or she is worth the title she or he holds. Actually this is the question of seeing, not believing.