Here's how you can become a software architect: the step-by-step guide.

There are 10 types of architects: PowerPoint Architects and Real Architects. To become a Real Architect, there is only one way: hands-on work. There are no shortcuts. Once you’ve worked on 30 projects in the same domain, you’ll start to understand the underlying concepts and the reasons behind certain decisions. At the beginning, you’re a developer, and new developers often don’t get into the “why”. You follow instructions: “I’ve been told to do X,” or “The architecture document says Y,” or “Z isn’t properly defined.” Over time, you evolve and begin to question the rationale behind specific decisions. Having open discussions with project architects is gold. Summary: - 70% is hands-on experience - 20% is networking - 10% is education

Reimagining the quote from Ratatouille- "Not everyone can become a good architect, but a good architect can come from anywhere." My journey from developer to architect highlights the value of understanding ground realities. Knowing what works and what doesn't is crucial. Before starting, identify functional and non-functional requirements. Coding is easy; figuring out the right design is hard. Design for scalability and anticipate failures. Embrace failure as a learning opportunity. Follow AWS's well-architected principles: cost, availability, security, resilience, and performance. Use SOLID principles and design patterns. MACH architecture embodies key guidelines for good architecture, promoting flexibility and scalability.

Understand what is architecture and who is an architect. Architect needs to take the big decitions on tech stacks, infrastructure, resilience and security needs. She also needs to undersnd how to build a framework makes design and development easy. In IT architect also needs to balance needs of the business and estimate. Best you start with design of the systems you are building. work with senior architect in your company or intern with one. Getting architecture experience as a developer is hard but keep your eyes open

Below is my take on becoming an architect: Architecting a solution mainly involves helping a client with best possible way (technically & commercially) to implement the requirement. - Working on various projects helps one gain in-depth knowledge of different scenarios and tools - Experience hones your problem-solving skills, enabling you to tackle complex technical challenges efficiently. - Integrating various systems and technologies seamlessly, ensuring smooth interoperability. - To design solutions tailored to particular business needs, one should have domain-specific knowledge - The tech industry evolves rapidly. Experience teaches you to continuously learn and adapt to new technologies and methodologies. Keep learning !!

In every solution architecture related conversation, my first question has been “where will the system be deployed?” Or “While the solution view is great, have you thought about what will be the one time and running cost to instantiate this solution?”. In my humble opinion, the architecture is as good as its deployment model. And I don’t agree to overused statement that “it will be hybrid multicloud development or it can run on any public cloud”, as it clearly shows that not enough thoughts have gone to determine how the architecture would be instantiated as there are multiple aspects to be evaluated like “users and their geographic location”, “data privacy/residency”, “RPO and RTO SLAs” along with performance, availability or scalability.

Sharpen your design skills through these effective strategies: * Analyze existing designs: Deconstruct past projects to understand decision-making processes, challenges faced, and the factors considered. * Simulate design projects: Create mockups for real or hypothetical systems. Explore various options, rank them, and justify your selections. * Visualize your ideas: Utilize diagrams and flowcharts to refine your designs, enhance clarity, and simplify communication with your team. These are some of the options to gain valuable design experience

Programming Languages: Master multiple programming languages (e.g., Java, C#, Python, JavaScript). Software Design and Architecture: Learn about different software design patterns (e.g., MVC, microservices) and architectural styles (e.g., monolithic, SOA, RESTful). System Design: Understand system design principles, scalability, performance optimization, and system integration. DevOps and Cloud Computing: Gain knowledge in DevOps practices and cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud).

Agile has in some ways pushed design to the back ground but it is essential to good software. Things like cloud native developement, API microservices have established patterns and frameworks so that is not hard to adapt. Desinging for features, resuse and make the software resilient needs creativity and also looking at good designs from other teams. Look at good architecture and desgin case studies and learn about trade off analysis. Doing POCs with different desgin pardigms , frameworks will help

There are always many perspectives around how the things could or should be done, the way we communicate is important, culturally people may have different response to the same discussion. It is quite common to become emotional when you discuss your, or your team, delivery. That is why communication, human skills and leave the emotions aside is critical for an architect position. An architect has to be a mentor for the team and a reference for the stakeholders, be open-minded and listen whoever is in front, 99% of the times we'll need to get to a middle ground. That's why not only comms are important, social skills as well, ideally a good architect should be a trusted advisor, for business and the tech teams. Gaining trust is also key.

Having effective communication skills is a key factor, but there are no defined steps to achieve proficiency. Some of the ways to effectively communicate as an architect are Visualize your design and architecture: Make use of different diagrams to explain your ideas and design. For e.g. Have different representations for high level solutions and low level flows. Tailor content for Audience: Try to have different presentations or communication style based on your audience. For e.g. present different architectural diagrams for technical and business audience.

As they grow, often architects move to ivory towers. They are not involved in the real trenches and don't understand newer technology and sometimes lack detailed understanding of what the implications of certain design decisions are. Apart from staying in touch with latest trends and innovations, architects should also write code. As Gregor Hohpe puts it - "Architects should write code not to deliver, but to understand the ramifications of their decisions".

Everyone aspires to stay current with the latest technologies and trends, but it's hard to do whilst being full time on your current job. However treat architectural work as an ongoing continuous activity in other words adopt continuous architecting (CA) if that's a term. Look out for optimizing your architecture/design and keep evolving. When learning about new patterns think about how it could be applied to your existing architecture/systems. By continuously evolving your architecture with latest trends and patterns might help you to stay current and also improve your architectural skills.