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Is it possible to even get into software architecture without pretty significant experience? From my experience in the workplace anybody making purely architect

Is it possible to even get into software architecture without pretty significant experience? From my experience in the workplace anybody making purely architectural decisions without having to implement them is a team lead or higher in the organizational architecture.

notyourwork 8y ago
Which makes sense right? Same reason a military general doesn’t start as a general. Architecture takes experience in the weeds to give a breadth you can leverage as you reason through architecture. Architecture isn’t aslways black and white decision making based on some specs which is where experience can help a ton.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  Generals often start out as lieutenants though (e.g. officer academy drops you in on a higher rank).
  - skh 8y ago
    In the U.S. military this is not true. People graduating from OCS, ROTC, or one of the academies start off at O-1 (2nd Lieutenant).
    - learc83 8y ago
      What's your disagreement? 1st Lieutenant vs 2nd Lieutenant? Lieutenant is commonly used to refer to both. Or are you saying that you start of at O-1 and not a higher paygrade? If that's the case, the OP was pointing out that you start off outranking enlisted service members, not that you start out above O-1.
      - skh 8y ago
        Well, I misread the comment I responded to. I thought they said that academy graduates don’t start off at lieutenant and start off at a higher rate.
Aeolun 8y ago
It’s the best way to get into it anyway. Making architectural decisions without experience implementing them sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.
- tzjmetron 8y ago
  Yup.
sjg007 8y ago
Yes it is possible.
jsmeaton 8y ago
No I wouldn’t think so. But knowing about a role and angling towards it early if that sounds more interesting is hopefully helpful information.
phrh8 8y ago
Not sure it would happen that way out of choice, but the role can get unexpectedly thrust upon someone, experienced or not (Think startups, desperate to make ends meet with a handful of inexperienced engineers...or even at medium sized companies, remember back when Google had "20% projects"?). At startups especially though: they don't have money to go out of their way to hire an overpriced "experienced software architect"... It goes something like: "Hey, new Engineer, I need you to work on experimental feature X". - Then the engineer builds system Y to provide feature X, probably poorly architected and not scalable, not expecting it to go anywhere. Some months later, app containing feature X gets distributed to thousands of users, or goes viral and hits millions of users. Congratulations, like it or not, you have now become the lead architect of the now-widely-deployed "experimental" system Y, and you are going to either crash and burn or become a damn good software architect by maintaining it out of sheer necessity. Later, you find yourself putting "Lead Software Designer" on your resume, having earned that role and title. A lot of successful software was originally designed "by mistake" and grows far, far greater than its original purpose. And in contrast, you get the well-designed software that was properly architected, but never goes anywhere because it never saw the light of a successful deployment at scale.
- bmiller2 8y ago
  I think you’ve accurately described the vast, vast majority of production code that’s hasn’t been through a second wave of engineers/management and rewritten. If it works, and requirements aren’t changing, then your MVP has become the gold standard

notyourwork 8y ago

Which makes sense right? Same reason a military general doesn’t start as a general. Architecture takes experience in the weeds to give a breadth you can leverage as you reason through architecture. Architecture isn’t aslways black and white decision making based on some specs which is where experience can help a ton.

Aeolun 8y ago
Generals often start out as lieutenants though (e.g. officer academy drops you in on a higher rank).
- skh 8y ago
  In the U.S. military this is not true. People graduating from OCS, ROTC, or one of the academies start off at O-1 (2nd Lieutenant).
  - learc83 8y ago
    What's your disagreement? 1st Lieutenant vs 2nd Lieutenant? Lieutenant is commonly used to refer to both. Or are you saying that you start of at O-1 and not a higher paygrade? If that's the case, the OP was pointing out that you start off outranking enlisted service members, not that you start out above O-1.
    - skh 8y ago
      Well, I misread the comment I responded to. I thought they said that academy graduates don’t start off at lieutenant and start off at a higher rate.

Aeolun 8y ago

It’s the best way to get into it anyway. Making architectural decisions without experience implementing them sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

tzjmetron 8y ago
Yup.

sjg007 8y ago

Yes it is possible.

jsmeaton 8y ago

No I wouldn’t think so. But knowing about a role and angling towards it early if that sounds more interesting is hopefully helpful information.

phrh8 8y ago

Not sure it would happen that way out of choice, but the role can get unexpectedly thrust upon someone, experienced or not (Think startups, desperate to make ends meet with a handful of inexperienced engineers...or even at medium sized companies, remember back when Google had "20% projects"?). At startups especially though: they don't have money to go out of their way to hire an overpriced "experienced software architect"... It goes something like: "Hey, new Engineer, I need you to work on experimental feature X". - Then the engineer builds system Y to provide feature X, probably poorly architected and not scalable, not expecting it to go anywhere. Some months later, app containing feature X gets distributed to thousands of users, or goes viral and hits millions of users. Congratulations, like it or not, you have now become the lead architect of the now-widely-deployed "experimental" system Y, and you are going to either crash and burn or become a damn good software architect by maintaining it out of sheer necessity. Later, you find yourself putting "Lead Software Designer" on your resume, having earned that role and title. A lot of successful software was originally designed "by mistake" and grows far, far greater than its original purpose. And in contrast, you get the well-designed software that was properly architected, but never goes anywhere because it never saw the light of a successful deployment at scale.

bmiller2 8y ago
I think you’ve accurately described the vast, vast majority of production code that’s hasn’t been through a second wave of engineers/management and rewritten. If it works, and requirements aren’t changing, then your MVP has become the gold standard