The best way to learn architecture is to: 1. Maintain a large enough project. Not create, but support. 2. Do it for at least couple or few projects. If proje

The best way to learn architecture is to: 1. Maintain a large enough project. Not create, but support. 2. Do it for at least couple or few projects. If project is too small, any architecture works fine. "Large" can be in terms of lines of code, but better in terms of people who ever worked on it, or even better -- teams. At least two different projects is to have something to compare. I've seen people stuck for decades on one project and not knowing any modern ways to solve a problem. But often the architects who get promoted because they created, not maintained a project. Especially visible in Google, as you don't get promoted for maintaining anything, only for shipping something new (and better jumping off as soon as possible afterwards). Counterintuitively, people in the best position to be architects are actually side contractors from head shops, who get invited to maintain an existing project no one from a company is willing to (as they all jumped off where promotions go). First, they have to maintain an architecture, and second they did it on several projects, so can compare. The downside though, is if they bill by the hour, the tend to over-complicate architecture to bill more hours.