Maybe. Although I think there is a distinct mindset difference between someone who is a really good coder versus a really good designer. Personally I refer to

Maybe. Although I think there is a distinct mindset difference between someone who is a really good coder versus a really good designer. Personally I refer to myself as a software architect, partially because it's one of my job titles and partially because laying out large multi-component systems comes very naturally to me and is something I seem to be more proficient at than many developers I meet. Meanwhile when it comes to actually sitting down for implementation work I'm just on the average to high-average side of things. Finally when it comes to algorithm design and analysis I'm pretty mediocre. Although, I hope, that is mostly from never having to work in that area very much. I sort of think it boils down to if you are a forest or trees sort of person. Normally I approach writing code as modules, then classes and then methods working my way down to implementation instead of going the other route and starting with methods and building up to classes and modules. So when I sit down to start a new project I normally plug in most of the classes and interfaces first for the sections i'm working on and then implement down from class design to coordinating logic to specific methods (tweaking my interfaces as I go). Meanwhile I know some other developers that take the opposite route and start with low level implementation and work from there up to coordination level stuff. They can't really feel out the big picture until they have a solid grasp on the low level implementation details and I can't really feel out the low level implementation details until I have a good idea of the big picture in my head.