On Becoming a Software Architect

Another interesting question I recently received was from Ajay, a reader who said he was a developer aspiring to become an architect. Ajay wanted to know how he can go about becoming an architect.

To be truthful, I don't know of any orderly career path that can lead you to become an architect. You either get hired as one or one day you just declare yourself as one :-). However, there are probably a few things you can do if you want to be a good architect.

I can post the answer I send Ajay (probably I'll do that tomorrow), but before I do that there are a couple of things I want to discuss. The first thing is would any one be interested in few posts for new architects/aspiring architects (leave a comment or drop me an email arnon@rgoarchitects.com if you do)

The second issue is architect training. There isn't a lot of that happening. Dana Bredemeyer has a four-day workshop. (I've heard him present once and I've talked with a few people that went through the workshop and it seems pretty good). Again, I don't really know of anything else in this area.

I started to think about a 4-5 days workshop but never got to actually make it happen. This is what I had in mind:

• Part I: Architecture Basics
  • Why
  • What Software architecture
  • Product Line Architecture
  • Enterprise Architecture
    

  • Introduction to software documentation
    
    
    
    • Stakeholders
      
    • Quality attributes
      
    • Viewpoint
      
    • Views
      
    
    

• Part II: The Architectural Process & context
  • The SPAMMED process
    

  • Architect vs. the World [The architect's place within the development organization]
    • Project Management
    • Requirements Management
    • Design
    • Development
    • Testing
    • Agile team
  • Architect soft skills

• Part III: Architectural Topics
  
  
  
  • Domain modeling and related trends (Software Factories/ MDA )
    
  • Patterns/Styles
    

  • Architectural Dilemmas [presenting an issue - open discussion and presenting some final thoughts]
    

    • Topics like:
      
    • O/R mapping vs, DAO
      
    • Client side Thin vs. Smart vs. Web
      
    • SOA
      
    • Stateless vs. Stateful servers
      
    • etc.
      
    
    

• Part IV: From Theory to Practice [this should be intertwined between the presentations]
  
  
  
  • Problem Introduction
    
  • Modeling
    
  • Evaluation
    
  
  

While a workshop like this wouldn't make someone who isn't "ready" an architect, it would help those making their first steps into the field. Again, any comments are welcomed.

Posted by Arnon Rotem-Gal-Oz at 04:25 AM  Permalink