How to become a software architect?
In industry specific forums, I often see questions like “what certification do I need to do to become an architect?”. The simple answer is that you don't need a certification to become an architect. It may help, but there is a lot more to it to become an architect.
You can't just only study to become an architect. The best way to become an architect is to start thinking andacting like one. If you start thinking like one, you will start to observe the architects and learn. This is true for the other roles like becoming a manager, lead, etc. These roles require technical skills complemented with good soft skills, attitude, and work ethics.
Any self-help book will tell you -- what you think and do is what you become. This is why many interviewers ask open-ended questions like who are your role models? what books did you read recently? how do you keep your knowledge up to date? tell me about yourself? what are your short term and long term goals?, etc. These questions can reveal a lot about your passion, enthusiasm, attitude, communication skills, and technical strength.
Here is my take on the road map to become a software (e.g. JEE) architect.
- Learn to draw high-level conceptual and UML diagrams: Know the various architectural styles, JEE layered multi tier architecture, and various integration styles. You must be confident to draw these diagrams on a white board with regards to the actual application you had worked on or how you would go about designing a new application in question.
- Learn to ask the right questions -- what if ...? how about ...?, design alternatives, pros vs cons, tactical versus strategical, strategical vs political, weight the risks against the benefits, build vs buy, etc. Ask questions pertaining to the 16 key areas. Think in terms of scalability, transactional boundaries, best practices, exception handling, development process improvement, etc.
- Get a good handle on the 16 key areas and proactively apply these key areas.
- Language Fundamentals (LF)
- Specification Fundamentals (SF)
- Platform Fundamentals (PF)
- Design Considerations (DC)
- Design Patterns (DP)
- Concurrency Management (CM)
- Performance Considerations (PC)
- Memory/Resource Considerations (MC)
- Transaction Management (TM)
- Security (SE)
- Scalability (SC)
- Best Practices (BP)
- Coding (CO)
- Exception Handling (EH)
- Software Development Processes (SDP)
- Quality of Service (QoS)
- Look at things from both business and technical perspective: architects form a bridge between many cross functional teams like business analysts, stake holders, project managers, developers, testers, infrastructure team, operational and support staff. Know your target audience and learn to convey technology to the business non-technically and the business requirements to the techies technically.
- Learn to look at the big pictures and also pay attention to details where required.
- Get a well rounded hands-on experience. For example, client side, server side, application integration, full SDLC, etc. Nothing beats experience, and you can proactively fast-track your career by learning from others' experience via good books, blogs, industry specific web sites, and helping others on the forums.
- Also, should have a good domain knowledge
- You don't have to be the "jack of all trades" but as a technical leader and a bridge between various stake holders and the development teams, you need to have good soft skills to make things happen by engaging the right teams and expertise. The key soft skills to have are communication, interpersonal, leadership, analytical, negotiation, and problem solving. The soft-skills and domain knowledge are the most important in the list.
So, the combination of all the above can transform you into an architect. Stay visible at your current work and behave like an architect to get a foot in the door. Ask the right questions and contribute in team meetings and crisis sessions to prove your capabilities.
The books that I enjoyed reading:
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