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I don't like Software Architects. What is implicit in the SA role is that the rest of the dev team is full of dummies that can't think strategically or archite

• alttab 14y ago
  I agree with this. Not everyone is a software architect. It should be the goal of the development team to turn every developer into one. In my mind, the role of a SA is to make the right decisions until everyone else can do it on their own, but enable and teach along the way. * spelling
• dack 14y ago
  Although I agree with your strategy of hiring, it sounds like what you are saying is "hiring non architect-quality people is an antipattern". Okay, well obviously bad developers make a bad team. Even on a good team, there are more and less experienced developers. I don't see what's wrong with calling the most experienced ones "architects" if that's what they want to be called, as long as it's clear that it isn't an excuse for the other developers to ignore higher level goals and design.
• chriseppstein 14y ago
  Did you actually read the link before commenting? Honest question.
  • jfoutz 14y ago
    It's a clever list of aphorisms. None of the qualities you desire are actually defining features of the SA, though. Who on your team is not a student? who is not a mentor? who should gloat when they are right? who does not understand the most precious parts of the system? I think your list is less about A Software Architect and more about people who take pride in their work.
    • chriseppstein 14y ago
      I think you're starting to understand my points then.
  • MattRogish 14y ago
    Absolutely. And you lost me from the first point: "A software architect lives to serve the engineering team -- not the other way around." This implies the SA is not a member of the engineering team. Or if they are, they're "special" in a way the rest of the team isn't. And that I whole-heartedly disagree with. Most of the other things I expect every member of the team to do, anyway. So if your point was to say - "Everyone in the dev team needs to be the SA", then yes, you're right. But that's not how it reads.
    • geebee 14y ago
      I agree. Reading through this list, I wonder what we would lose by replacing "software architect" with "lead developer" or even just "really good developer". It seems like the list would retain its meaning, without the potentially muddying effects of a word (architect) that comes loaded with all kinds of preconceptions.
  • joe_the_user 14y ago
    If you were asking an "honest question", wouldn't you be expecting to get some further information from the answer? I don't see anything. It just sounds the usual "Did you even read XXX?" rhetorical question. I'm not even against rhetorical questions. It's simply annoying when "honest question" becomes nothing but a emphasizer in the fashion of the common misuse of "literally" or a "justifier" ("I think you're idiot" is out of line but in our world of touchy-feely-ism, "I honestly think you're an idiot" is OK) Edit: Instead of just "taking a shot" by saying, "did you read the article", I'd suggest saying why you don't think the comment reflects the article. Otherwise, your post says little more than a downvote.
• tjr 14y ago
  I like software architects. While every member of the team may be capable of strategic thinking in general, not every member of the team actually has sufficient domain knowledge to chart everything out. Building some data link avionics software that needs to be DO-178B Level C compliant and operate within the parameters specified by the EuroControl Link 2000+ initiative? Not every hacker off the street will be able to come up to speed on the implications of all of that in short order. Someone with fifteen years experience in the same or similar technologies will be able to plan the system and guide the more novice programmers. But it likely depends on what software you're building. If you're building web applications that cull together lots of common-knowledge ideas, then having an experienced individual plan it out for you might not be as needful.
• deleted 14y ago
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• Spearchucker 14y ago
  There's another side to being an architect that many incredibly brilliant developers I know can't do, and don't want. What I'm talking about are the soft skills - stakeholder management, risk management, conflict management, politics, negotiation, and so on. There's an overview here: http://wwww.wittenburg.co.uk/Presentations.aspx http://wwww.wittenburg.co.uk/Presentations.aspx You don't need to be "an architect" to be good at these things, but an architect should be good at these things. Not having or even wanting these skills is not a bad thing, it's just that we're different, and good at different things.
  • MattRogish 14y ago
    If there is a need for a separate position to do that - the softer side - what does that have to do with software architecture?? The best solution to the problem doesn't really care if the VP of Marketing is sad that they weren't involved. However, I do agree that role is important but from what I've seen it's typically the job of a VP Eng, CTO, Scrum Master - "Management-y" types.
    • Spearchucker 14y ago
      I respect your view, so up-voted, and yet disagree. I think anybody, regardless of role or industry can be more effective with those skills. And technical ability aside (note, that is critical), architects in particular should (in my opinion) be good at this stuff. [Edit] Just saw you've an MBA. I now understand your thinking.
      • MattRogish 14y ago
        Well, I absolutely agree that the softer side is huge in just about any career. But if we're centralizing the softer side into a defined role (as you seemed to do with the "SA"), then I'd say it "better" lives somewhere else, as the other "technical" SA stuff is distributed to the team.
    • deleted 14y ago
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• lars 14y ago
  I don't dislike Software Architects (I've only worked with actually brilliant people with the SA title), but I think there's a strong truth to this: "The SA/Dev stratification is an anti-pattern." A good architecture is a good high level organization of the code. To be a good architect, you have to be a good developer. And you cannot be a good developer without being good at software architecture. So as far as I can tell, the only actual reason for the SA/Dev divide is to have titles to give to people. Titles are essentially something an organization gives to people in order to keep them happy. And to me, "architect" seems like a fancier title than "developer", if only to sound better to strangers at a party. I'd like to hear people's opinion of this. In my organization, there are two career paths, one for "architects" and one for "system developers". They are presented as equally valuable roles. Are they actually distinct roles, or only a useful invention for the organization? Moreover, is this distinction actually valuable?
• ChuckMcM 14y ago
  This may be terminology. Chris' blog post clearly was attacking that part of the problem. The issue is that many people put 'architect' in a slot over 'developer' and that is wrong, it should be a slot beside 'developer.' I've interviewed lots of folks who said "I want to be an Architect!" and asked them what they thought that meant. Far too many of them it was some sort of 'decision maker without deliverables' kind of job (who wouldn't like that). But that isn't what architecture is about, it's about knowing that you need a bathroom near the dining room, or that a flat roof doesn't work where you get a lot of heavy snow, or using a database to hold what is essentially log data, or encryption as a part of the data structure layout. I always think 'systems analysis' rather than 'software architecture.' When Sun was merging SunOS and System V we dealt with "Systems Engineers" from AT&T who were writing "Requirements Documents" but they had no clue how those requirements were affecting the underlying system. Most of the folks at Sun held them in great disdain, and their coders were not "allowed" to decide issues on the requirements. That was both sad and dysfunctional. The trick is that some people are better at seeing the trees, and others are better at seeing the forest, and a few can both see the forest and point out which trees are out of place. Cultivating all of them for your team is a good idea, the product will be better for it.
  • MattRogish 14y ago
    "[architecture is] about knowing that you need a bathroom near the dining room, or that a flat roof doesn't work where you get a lot of heavy snow, or using a database to hold what is essentially log data, or encryption as a part of the data structure layout. I always think 'systems analysis' rather than 'software architecture.'" And I would argue that I expect every member of the dev team to be able to realize those things. Perhaps not right away (you're not birthed from the womb knowing proper database indexing) but absolutely as a person moves up the developer ladder they are expected to know and implement proper architecture. _Not_ expecting those things merely turns a developer into a fancy sort of typist that does exactly what they're told (implement this spec). And it's been my experience that those sorts of programmers (and the companies that birth them) produce pretty boring, uninspired, miserable to use products.
    • ChuckMcM 14y ago
• jwr 14y ago
  Who said there must be only one?
• jaaron 14y ago
  It's a role that any senior engineer should be able to take. And yes, every senior engineer should be architect-quality, but in some projects, it's useful to ensure that at least one person is tasked with the sole role of keeping an eye on the system as a whole, able to keep the entire platform in their head, and do the dirty work of documenting and cleaning up rough edges. In some cases, the architect can blaze the trail ahead a bit so that everyone else can focus on shipping code, rather than spinning wheels evaluating technical options. If possible, it's a rotating role, with each senior engineering having to do duty as an architect just as he or she would do duty on devops. Maybe you're working on a project that doesn't need that level of overhead. Maybe it's small enough and the system is simple enough. But at some level, the amount of architectural work becomes big enough that its worthwhile having someone on it fulltime.
• Daniel_Newby 14y ago
  "What is implicit in the SA role is that the rest of the dev team is full of dummies that can't think strategically or architect big parts of the system." The IQ of a team is equal to the IQ of its dullest member divided by the number of members. Ergo the only way to have good systems architecture is for a handful of smart people to do it. These people are the architects. The development of the IBM System/360 is a famous example of why this matters. They first tried to design the system by having a few hundred decent engineers do it in distributed fashion. The resulting design was so poor it had to be thrown away. The second try had a small team of architects plan the system while everybody else sat on their hands. It worked spectacularly well. P.S. If you think this does not apply to you, there is a good chance you have delegated a lot of your system architecture to small outside teams. You do not need your own data access architect if you are using, say, PostgreSQL.
• Ingaz 14y ago
  I don't like them also. Even more - I hate this title. And I'm a SA at my current employer. But Chris talk about right SAs - programmers with strategic thinking responsible for architectural decisions.