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Software Architect: The Best Job in America

29 points by joeblau 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
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- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
dccoolgai 12y ago
You always see this at the top of every list of this general ilk. For me, it's true. I do it and I love it. But when I look around the office at my co-workers, I honestly believe 70-80% of people would either just abhor it or be terrible at it. Even though they might complain about it, they love meetings. Love them so much. They get out of a meeting and genuinely feel like they did something productive. These people would be deeply unhappy if they were yanked out of the candyland where having meetings and opinions was what they were responsible for and suddenly were told "Now you have to do something tangible to earn a living." ... In the same way I would be deeply unhappy if I were told I had to go to meetings all day. The point is, this probably is the best job... but not for a lot of people. So it seems misplaced at the top of all these lists.
- mastazi 12y ago
  As a developer, "meetings" and "expressing opinions" is exactly how I picture a software architect's job. I'm not saying that in a diminutive way, I actually think that interpersonal communication and group work are very important in any human endeavour.
  - mastazi 12y ago
    ...and I wish I could spend more time exchanging ideas rather than staring at my IDE.
  - vendakka 12y ago
    There is usually a fair bit of prototyping work involved as well. There's also a lot of listening involved, as you can't really design a good system without first talking to the people who are going to use the system and understanding their needs. In addition you'll need to listen to the folks who are going to be implementing the system as well so you get a feel for what they are good at and what they enjoy working on.
ecopoesis 12y ago
I think software architects are a company anti-pattern. It seems like such a good idea, one or two big brains putting the whole system together, then a pile of cheaper code monkeys doing the implementation. On my experience, what you actually get is your one or two "big brains" doing little to no work. They go to lots of conferences, are in a lot of meetings, derail almost all useful conversation, and maybe occasionally produce a UML diagram. The plebes responsible for actually building the system typically throw away the architect's design immediately, because while it's a beautiful, pure design, it doesn't take into account being deployed, running and being supported in the real world. The code monkeys then build a deeply flawed system, but it ships and works. But at least the architect is great to have beers with during the Friday happy hour. Skip the architects, make the monkeys do the design. Have them vet it with each other, preferably in a formal setting with your entire engineering team. Everyone codes, and everyone architects.
- angersock 12y ago
  So, let's take the other side of this. If you let the monkeys do the design, you get shit on the walls. Why? Because software systems really do only want one guiding vision for how they are implemented and work--and that's really hard to accomplish when you design by committee. The monkeys, while they do probably have an eye for things that make little patch jobs easier, are not probably doing global optimization. That's why you end up with elaborate mechanisms for the moral equivalent of pushing a button, when that button should never exist in the first place. The vast majority of developers are not good at creating coherent, simple systems--a good architect is. There are a lot of bad people out there failing at this job, but the cost of letting the system develop piecemeal is a great way to put a hard cap on company growth.
  - napoleond 12y ago
    Yeah, I really don't like the monkey analogy, but setting that aside for a second, this is exactly why "software architects" exist--good design requires cohesive vision, and that's almost impossible to accomplish when designing by committee. (I have seen it work well, but only with people that had been working together happily for a long time, often with a few design failures before hitting their stride.) Incidentally, this is more-or-less the same reason we have architects for real-life buildings.
jordanpg 12y ago
I think we've all been somewhere that had a laughably incompetent "architect". I can think of at least 3 in my own relatively short career, at three different firms. The rest I would describe as... harmless? And yet I can see the value of having a strong leader in this role, especially on large-scale enterprise projects and similar. My own limited experiences and the countless anecdotal similar experiences I've read on HN, etc. over the years raises the question of how some of these people get hired. I assume it's because architects are hired by C-level executives and managers, not technical staff. Probably lots of odd coincidences where everyone used to work at the same place... But I can promise you this: if I am ever invited to sit in on the interview for an architect, those candidates will get nothing but questions about the fundamentals of networking and development from me.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  > My own limited experiences and the countless anecdotal similar experiences I've read on HN, etc. over the years raises the question of how some of these people get hired. I think I clued in to part of that a couple of weeks ago: they tell management what management wants to hear in a language that management understands. This sort of rapport leads to a completely misplaced trust and the associated trainwrecks make for interesting projects from a recovery point of view. In a nutshell: it's all people and psychology and being antagonistic will more often than not cause you to be ignored, even if you're right and so the bozos get to have their run.
- smurph 12y ago
  I've noticed the same thing. Management tends to be older white men with MBAs and there's a big culture divide between them and the developers who control their destiny. So what do they do? They go hire a guy about their age with a CS degree and an MBA to be the trusted representative and they pay him more than any developer. It doesn't just happen in software either, I've seen the same thing with biologists at bio tech companies. Some brand new white baby boomer ends up in charge of the biology team that's been there for years all because the white baby boomer boss doesn't want to handle the mostly female and non-white employees.
mprny 12y ago
"Benefit to society" whats that all about? Landman and Patent Agent get A's for benefiting society. From what I can see anything software related gets B or less.
jkot 12y ago
Top 10 something lists are far from exact. Second best job in this list is 'game designer'. Obviously this list ignores overtimes, job stability, living cost etc.
- phamilton 12y ago
  But they said it gets a 'A' for low stress! /sarcasm
jayvanguard 12y ago
It is an unfashionable role right now in good software development organizations. I used to go by the title but tend not to anymore. Nevertheless, there is still a need for that role in large organizations whether they are called that or not. A typical project or product at a large company has many people over multiple sites involved and/or significantly affected by the project. Someone with enough technical depth needs to coordinate, make decisions, and be accountable for the overall technical cohesion. Most developers either aren't interested in spending their time on that or aren't good at it. The ones that are end up playing the role of architect. If they don't have the authority to back it up, either by reputation or granted by title, they will get nowhere when they try to convince other groups all work towards the same vision.
- exabrial 12y ago
  Agree. It is unfashionable, but in the long run, having a unified technical vision for your product breaks down silos and makes products easy to maintain. Here's the problems I've had with this position: 1) Not innovating. Basically you decided 10 years ago to use Java 1.4.2 and by golly it was good enough then it's good enough now. You have to rock the boat occasionally. And yes, your applications should require a rewrite every 3-5 years. 2) I've worked with too many people that were promoted into the role by time at the job, instead of skill, which is the real anti-pattern. 3) They "don't code." This is ridiculous. Eat your own dog food. If you can't code faster/better than the engineers underneath you, you need to be replaced.
mcmancini 12y ago
This list is nonsense. Video game designers get a 'B' for benefit to society? The first engineering position is #37? Clickbait junk.
duckspeaker 12y ago
Software architects are developers in a past life who don't want to do any real work anymore. They never really liked coding and they're certainly not getting their hands dirty.
- slowmovintarget 12y ago
  No. Those are bad software architects. That's like saying developers are people who write buggy software for job security. All they like to do is play around with the latest toys and they always make the project late. Those are bad developers. Good software architects make the entire team more productive, the entire product (or family of products) more cohesive, and make future change easier.
q2 12y ago
Honest questions: How to become software architect? What are the relevant qualifications/industry standards? Can any current or past architects on HN share their life experiences? Thanks.
- slowmovintarget 12y ago
  1) Read (a lot) and absorb quality writing on software development. For example Pragmatic Programmer, Code Complete, Designing Hard Software, SICP... 2) Create software (for about 10 years at least) for fun and profit. Assume others must read and understand your code. Write it for them. Also love the code you write. Find the beauty in solving problems elegantly and simply. You'll learn a lot. 3) Teach others how to create high-quality software, most especially focusing on "why". This keeps you thinking about what you're doing and leads to you finding ways to improve. 4) Listen and evaluate honestly when others criticize your choices. Maybe you did do it wrong or you don't have the whole picture. Have strong opinions, weakly held. 5) Repeat. These aren't qualifications so much as guidelines for when people ask me how I got "so good." My title has been "Software Architect" for the last twelve years. There's a lot more to it, naturally. Your biggest job as an architect is to extend the reach of the entire development team. Be it by writing libraries and frameworks for the project, mentoring developers, or creating designs and guidelines for developers to work within. Like a building architect, you are responsible for crafting and engineering the space in which people will live and work. For a software architect those people are the users, the developers, and the stakeholders. Your job is to strike the right balance between the three groups. The reason you see so many posts in this thread deriding software architects is that as an industry we have largely forgotten what software architecture is. B-School and CIO Magazine have been selling executives on out-sourcing so that they don't have to "worry" about that kind of thing (and we're just now recovering from this). Capital "A" Agile came along and sold them another bill-of-goods that doing Scrum would fix all the issues. For these and other reasons, the title basically came to mean "really good programmer" and was handed out as a simple promotion. But the real software architects are never just that. When doing their job properly, they become the foundation for excellent software development teams, and for excellent software.
bovermyer 12y ago
What I thought was hilarious is that the #2 job, Video Game Designer, had a "Low Stress" rating of A. It's almost like CNN doesn't know how much gamers hate the people that make games. I would never go back to the video game industry without protections in place to keep ragey gamers from swatting my house, sending death threats my way, or so forth.
- guard-of-terra 12y ago
  Whoa guy. I was thinking more about runaway overtime and release rush stress.
Mandatum 12y ago
The best architect I've worked with was previously a developer and then developer lead. He kept current with new technologies, development principles/tools and frameworks that were relevant to our stack. He helped with development occasionally and was pretty much the go-to guy for not being able to come to a solution on our own. Without a deep understanding of the moving parts of your systems, I don't think an architect can be very useful outside of taking meeting time from the development team. They're great for handling bureaucracy in a large environment, however a lot of that role can be done by your manager or their manager. Unfortunately handling bureaucracy isn't very high on the list of job satisfaction of someone who's role is in draught, he moved onto greener pastures shortly after I signed up.

29 points by joeblau 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

dccoolgai 12y ago

You always see this at the top of every list of this general ilk. For me, it's true. I do it and I love it. But when I look around the office at my co-workers, I honestly believe 70-80% of people would either just abhor it or be terrible at it. Even though they might complain about it, they love meetings. Love them so much. They get out of a meeting and genuinely feel like they did something productive. These people would be deeply unhappy if they were yanked out of the candyland where having meetings and opinions was what they were responsible for and suddenly were told "Now you have to do something tangible to earn a living." ... In the same way I would be deeply unhappy if I were told I had to go to meetings all day. The point is, this probably is the best job... but not for a lot of people. So it seems misplaced at the top of all these lists.

mastazi 12y ago
As a developer, "meetings" and "expressing opinions" is exactly how I picture a software architect's job. I'm not saying that in a diminutive way, I actually think that interpersonal communication and group work are very important in any human endeavour.
- mastazi 12y ago
  ...and I wish I could spend more time exchanging ideas rather than staring at my IDE.
- vendakka 12y ago
  There is usually a fair bit of prototyping work involved as well. There's also a lot of listening involved, as you can't really design a good system without first talking to the people who are going to use the system and understanding their needs. In addition you'll need to listen to the folks who are going to be implementing the system as well so you get a feel for what they are good at and what they enjoy working on.

ecopoesis 12y ago

I think software architects are a company anti-pattern. It seems like such a good idea, one or two big brains putting the whole system together, then a pile of cheaper code monkeys doing the implementation. On my experience, what you actually get is your one or two "big brains" doing little to no work. They go to lots of conferences, are in a lot of meetings, derail almost all useful conversation, and maybe occasionally produce a UML diagram. The plebes responsible for actually building the system typically throw away the architect's design immediately, because while it's a beautiful, pure design, it doesn't take into account being deployed, running and being supported in the real world. The code monkeys then build a deeply flawed system, but it ships and works. But at least the architect is great to have beers with during the Friday happy hour. Skip the architects, make the monkeys do the design. Have them vet it with each other, preferably in a formal setting with your entire engineering team. Everyone codes, and everyone architects.

angersock 12y ago
So, let's take the other side of this. If you let the monkeys do the design, you get shit on the walls. Why? Because software systems really do only want one guiding vision for how they are implemented and work--and that's really hard to accomplish when you design by committee. The monkeys, while they do probably have an eye for things that make little patch jobs easier, are not probably doing global optimization. That's why you end up with elaborate mechanisms for the moral equivalent of pushing a button, when that button should never exist in the first place. The vast majority of developers are not good at creating coherent, simple systems--a good architect is. There are a lot of bad people out there failing at this job, but the cost of letting the system develop piecemeal is a great way to put a hard cap on company growth.
- napoleond 12y ago
  Yeah, I really don't like the monkey analogy, but setting that aside for a second, this is exactly why "software architects" exist--good design requires cohesive vision, and that's almost impossible to accomplish when designing by committee. (I have seen it work well, but only with people that had been working together happily for a long time, often with a few design failures before hitting their stride.) Incidentally, this is more-or-less the same reason we have architects for real-life buildings.

jordanpg 12y ago

I think we've all been somewhere that had a laughably incompetent "architect". I can think of at least 3 in my own relatively short career, at three different firms. The rest I would describe as... harmless? And yet I can see the value of having a strong leader in this role, especially on large-scale enterprise projects and similar. My own limited experiences and the countless anecdotal similar experiences I've read on HN, etc. over the years raises the question of how some of these people get hired. I assume it's because architects are hired by C-level executives and managers, not technical staff. Probably lots of odd coincidences where everyone used to work at the same place... But I can promise you this: if I am ever invited to sit in on the interview for an architect, those candidates will get nothing but questions about the fundamentals of networking and development from me.

jacquesm 12y ago
> My own limited experiences and the countless anecdotal similar experiences I've read on HN, etc. over the years raises the question of how some of these people get hired. I think I clued in to part of that a couple of weeks ago: they tell management what management wants to hear in a language that management understands. This sort of rapport leads to a completely misplaced trust and the associated trainwrecks make for interesting projects from a recovery point of view. In a nutshell: it's all people and psychology and being antagonistic will more often than not cause you to be ignored, even if you're right and so the bozos get to have their run.
smurph 12y ago
I've noticed the same thing. Management tends to be older white men with MBAs and there's a big culture divide between them and the developers who control their destiny. So what do they do? They go hire a guy about their age with a CS degree and an MBA to be the trusted representative and they pay him more than any developer. It doesn't just happen in software either, I've seen the same thing with biologists at bio tech companies. Some brand new white baby boomer ends up in charge of the biology team that's been there for years all because the white baby boomer boss doesn't want to handle the mostly female and non-white employees.

mprny 12y ago

"Benefit to society" whats that all about? Landman and Patent Agent get A's for benefiting society. From what I can see anything software related gets B or less.

jkot 12y ago

Top 10 something lists are far from exact. Second best job in this list is 'game designer'. Obviously this list ignores overtimes, job stability, living cost etc.

phamilton 12y ago
But they said it gets a 'A' for low stress! /sarcasm

jayvanguard 12y ago

It is an unfashionable role right now in good software development organizations. I used to go by the title but tend not to anymore. Nevertheless, there is still a need for that role in large organizations whether they are called that or not. A typical project or product at a large company has many people over multiple sites involved and/or significantly affected by the project. Someone with enough technical depth needs to coordinate, make decisions, and be accountable for the overall technical cohesion. Most developers either aren't interested in spending their time on that or aren't good at it. The ones that are end up playing the role of architect. If they don't have the authority to back it up, either by reputation or granted by title, they will get nowhere when they try to convince other groups all work towards the same vision.

exabrial 12y ago
Agree. It is unfashionable, but in the long run, having a unified technical vision for your product breaks down silos and makes products easy to maintain. Here's the problems I've had with this position: 1) Not innovating. Basically you decided 10 years ago to use Java 1.4.2 and by golly it was good enough then it's good enough now. You have to rock the boat occasionally. And yes, your applications should require a rewrite every 3-5 years. 2) I've worked with too many people that were promoted into the role by time at the job, instead of skill, which is the real anti-pattern. 3) They "don't code." This is ridiculous. Eat your own dog food. If you can't code faster/better than the engineers underneath you, you need to be replaced.

mcmancini 12y ago

This list is nonsense. Video game designers get a 'B' for benefit to society? The first engineering position is #37? Clickbait junk.

duckspeaker 12y ago

Software architects are developers in a past life who don't want to do any real work anymore. They never really liked coding and they're certainly not getting their hands dirty.

slowmovintarget 12y ago
No. Those are bad software architects. That's like saying developers are people who write buggy software for job security. All they like to do is play around with the latest toys and they always make the project late. Those are bad developers. Good software architects make the entire team more productive, the entire product (or family of products) more cohesive, and make future change easier.

q2 12y ago

Honest questions: How to become software architect? What are the relevant qualifications/industry standards? Can any current or past architects on HN share their life experiences? Thanks.

slowmovintarget 12y ago
1) Read (a lot) and absorb quality writing on software development. For example Pragmatic Programmer, Code Complete, Designing Hard Software, SICP... 2) Create software (for about 10 years at least) for fun and profit. Assume others must read and understand your code. Write it for them. Also love the code you write. Find the beauty in solving problems elegantly and simply. You'll learn a lot. 3) Teach others how to create high-quality software, most especially focusing on "why". This keeps you thinking about what you're doing and leads to you finding ways to improve. 4) Listen and evaluate honestly when others criticize your choices. Maybe you did do it wrong or you don't have the whole picture. Have strong opinions, weakly held. 5) Repeat. These aren't qualifications so much as guidelines for when people ask me how I got "so good." My title has been "Software Architect" for the last twelve years. There's a lot more to it, naturally. Your biggest job as an architect is to extend the reach of the entire development team. Be it by writing libraries and frameworks for the project, mentoring developers, or creating designs and guidelines for developers to work within. Like a building architect, you are responsible for crafting and engineering the space in which people will live and work. For a software architect those people are the users, the developers, and the stakeholders. Your job is to strike the right balance between the three groups. The reason you see so many posts in this thread deriding software architects is that as an industry we have largely forgotten what software architecture is. B-School and CIO Magazine have been selling executives on out-sourcing so that they don't have to "worry" about that kind of thing (and we're just now recovering from this). Capital "A" Agile came along and sold them another bill-of-goods that doing Scrum would fix all the issues. For these and other reasons, the title basically came to mean "really good programmer" and was handed out as a simple promotion. But the real software architects are never just that. When doing their job properly, they become the foundation for excellent software development teams, and for excellent software.

bovermyer 12y ago

What I thought was hilarious is that the #2 job, Video Game Designer, had a "Low Stress" rating of A. It's almost like CNN doesn't know how much gamers hate the people that make games. I would never go back to the video game industry without protections in place to keep ragey gamers from swatting my house, sending death threats my way, or so forth.

guard-of-terra 12y ago
Whoa guy. I was thinking more about runaway overtime and release rush stress.

Mandatum 12y ago

The best architect I've worked with was previously a developer and then developer lead. He kept current with new technologies, development principles/tools and frameworks that were relevant to our stack. He helped with development occasionally and was pretty much the go-to guy for not being able to come to a solution on our own. Without a deep understanding of the moving parts of your systems, I don't think an architect can be very useful outside of taking meeting time from the development team. They're great for handling bureaucracy in a large environment, however a lot of that role can be done by your manager or their manager. Unfortunately handling bureaucracy isn't very high on the list of job satisfaction of someone who's role is in draught, he moved onto greener pastures shortly after I signed up.