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/De

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?