For me, one of the pieces that really helped me understand architecture, was doing ops for years. Deploying systems, designing deployment solutions, and underst

For me, one of the pieces that really helped me understand architecture, was doing ops for years. Deploying systems, designing deployment solutions, and understanding how services fit into their environment helped me understand the solution as a whole. I was more able to come up with simpler, quicker to implement, solutions. However, at the same time I was also doing lots of software development. I tried out lots of different solution styles. So don't ignore that aspect.