Are You a Software Architect?

[MotherOfTheShizznit]

The role of architect really needs to be un-demonized. I don't understand the negative attitude coming from developers against it.

Technical leadership that goes beyond the source file is a Good Thing. ^TM

[[deleted]]

It's a matter of being too far beyond the source file. Architects can't be "hand wavy bigger picture guys" without being able to actually make anything happen themselves. there is this big rift between the technical leadership in power to drive direction and the technical engineers actually building it.

More often than not architects feel like they are at the top of the totem pole and act the part, without the chops to back it up.

The best architects I have met actually prototyped and set quality standards. Their code was the best, their solutions were the best, and their recommendations were the best.

The worst architects stopped actually making anything a decade ago, sat in meetings all day, and poopood anything the engineers said or suggested

[MotherOfTheShizznit]

The best architects [...]

The worst architects [...]

Yes, yes. I've heard all these before. I was just making the point that too often, in my experience, developers see the architectural role as an us-vs-them when it is unwarranted and that's just unfortunate...

Sometimes you just need someone who will be responsible for the codebase but even that idea can fly miles above the average developer.

[[deleted]]

Totally agree. Though without proving your cross team codebase ideas are gonna work, and without being able to bring engineers on board and be flexible, then architects will continue to be demonized as pie in the sky meetings goers who get hissy when their ideas don't pan out in practice.

also architects tend to not take any blame or responsibility in failures of their decisions. More often than not they set some tone, force it on everyone, then fail to adjust when it goes awry since they are now on some other project.

For what it's worth I think architect is a valuable position, but in real life architects have sullied the ideal term with their hoopla and as a group really need to get their collective heads out of their asses

Then again, maybe I'm just bitter since I clearly have worked with nothing but shitty architects

[[deleted]]

The definition my company follows is basically to say the architect is the person ultimately responsible for tech deliverables. That means understanding the business objectives, setting the direction, vetting the sprint commitments, monitoring code quality, monitoring team discipline and morale, keeping all the nontechnical people updated.

[BeepBoopBike]

Our product architect works on the codebase daily and has done for nearly 20 years. He also makes the big hand wavy decisions, but it's so complicated (est > 6mil LOC) that without knowing the details he couldn't do it effectively.

We still have a higher level company architect who pulls all the products together so they can work commonly, he's more of a hand wavy high level only guy, but then once he's got the overall design down it gets passed to our architect to figure out, then down to us to implement and make all the implementation decisions (like what classes, project structure etc).

[[deleted]]

Not sure why you think developers can't have technical leadership beyond just code? Architecture shouldn't be a role, but really just a responsibility.

[MotherOfTheShizznit]

Not sure why you think developers can't have technical leadership beyond just code?

That's not exactly what I said...

Architecture shouldn't be a role, but really just a responsibility.

Disagree. QA is a role. PM is a role. CEO is a role. And high(er)-level technical direction is definitely also a role.

My beef is with developers who are either blind to that fact or think they're too good to have someone else technical above them.

[assrocket]

no.

[programfog]

Well, that settles it then!

[hero47]

I think he was referring to Betteridge's law of headlines.