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How would a Solution Architect be different to a senior engineer on the project or a tech lead? Experienced engineers who are thinking longer-term, while also h

How would a Solution Architect be different to a senior engineer on the project or a tech lead? Experienced engineers who are thinking longer-term, while also helping team members, and leading by example for planning, building, deploying etc.

cygned 6y ago
The SA is basically our tech lead in that regard, even though doing more, like strategic items. If we scale up to lots of developers and sub-teams, we’d have dedicated tech leads also being developers. Regarding senior engineers; we have multiple seniors on the team anyway, seniority doesn’t necessarily put you in an influential position. We use the SA basically as a technical coach. They are not the boss, and they don’t own the solution or push decisions, we practice collaborative ownership in that regard. I like to say the SA is our development scrum master. We run like this on projects for banks or insurances. Allows us to execute in an agile fashion (we actually use XP) while still being able to plan months ahead (high level) - those types of customers love their Gantt charts and solution architecture documentation ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
canadian_tired 6y ago
Sometimes, it can be the same person. In a largish endeavor, there may be few SAs, many SEs and even more devs. In my experience, it depends on the diversity of tech that the solution entails. To address your point (perhaps semantically) the SA may see a wider view... business lens, sustainability lens, etc. Often, the Senior Eng may interface a lot sith the SA, but may also hae more depth on the pure technical aspects of the solution. Captain Kirk is the SA, while Scotty might be the Senior Engineer. Kirk dreams of things, and can probably execute, but Scotty can keep him honest within the bounds of physics. Each needs the other. Ultimately, they are names on hats, and as long as the right people are in the room, I will take experience and communication capability over titles on cards. Source: This is what I do daily.

cygned 6y ago

The SA is basically our tech lead in that regard, even though doing more, like strategic items. If we scale up to lots of developers and sub-teams, we’d have dedicated tech leads also being developers. Regarding senior engineers; we have multiple seniors on the team anyway, seniority doesn’t necessarily put you in an influential position. We use the SA basically as a technical coach. They are not the boss, and they don’t own the solution or push decisions, we practice collaborative ownership in that regard. I like to say the SA is our development scrum master. We run like this on projects for banks or insurances. Allows us to execute in an agile fashion (we actually use XP) while still being able to plan months ahead (high level) - those types of customers love their Gantt charts and solution architecture documentation ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

canadian_tired 6y ago

Sometimes, it can be the same person. In a largish endeavor, there may be few SAs, many SEs and even more devs. In my experience, it depends on the diversity of tech that the solution entails. To address your point (perhaps semantically) the SA may see a wider view... business lens, sustainability lens, etc. Often, the Senior Eng may interface a lot sith the SA, but may also hae more depth on the pure technical aspects of the solution. Captain Kirk is the SA, while Scotty might be the Senior Engineer. Kirk dreams of things, and can probably execute, but Scotty can keep him honest within the bounds of physics. Each needs the other. Ultimately, they are names on hats, and as long as the right people are in the room, I will take experience and communication capability over titles on cards. Source: This is what I do daily.