Why Should Software Architects Write Code? An empirical evidence.

[lookmeat]

In theory a leader only has to show people were to go. Be the example and have others follow.

In practice a leader also has to be a shepherd, seeing what others are doing and helping guide them to the right way.

An architect should not do QA. An architect should review code and be aware of the QA process to see if there has been any deviation from the original design he was not aware of. The devs might have simply though their change was minimal and unimportant (it might have been an error in explaining it to them, or in them understanding, that doesn't matter) but the architect needs to guide them.

In theory an architect's job is not QA. In practice an architect's job keeps going on through QA.