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Most engineers I meet think of "architect" as a job title they might get promoted into one day. I'd flip that around. Architecting is something you start doing on a Tuesday afternoon, in the code you're already working on. The title follows the practice, not the other way round. So let me make two arguments: why the move is worth making, and how to make it without waiting for permission. Why bother Your decisions outlive your code. The class you wrote last year has probably b

Being a great engineer doesn’t automatically make you a great Software or Solution Architect. The transition from technical professional to architect is often less about learning more technology and more about developing a broader set of skills. A good architect needs to be able to: Understand requirements — including the business goals and constraints behind them. Design systems — making sound architectural decisions around structure, integration, scalability, resilience and

IT Architecture is a broad discipline, and there is no single certification that makes someone a “better architect.” Instead, the right certification depends heavily on the type of architecture you want to practice. For enterprise architecture, TOGAF remains one of the most prominent certification paths. The current TOGAF portfolio includes TOGAF Enterprise Architecture Foundation, TOGAF Enterprise Architecture Practitioner, and TOGAF Business Architecture Foundation, alongsi

The ivory tower has fallen. This is the era of JEJIT (Just-Enough-Just-In-Time) Architecture Agile changed our understanding of what software development actually is. As a consequence, the ivory tower had to fall. Agile-ism has rightly destroyed much of the architecture ivory tower, and we (architects) should celebrate that. Fact: Architects must stop pretending that uncertainty disappears because someone has produced a detailed 200-page target-state document (after disappea

Why many IT Architects increasingly prefer the ‘Principal Engineer’ title? Looking back over the past few years, I have observed a noticeable erosion in the perceived value of 'Architect' title (not necessarily role) across many organisations. Once regarded as an aspirational role for many engineers (including myself) and a cornerstone for translating business ambitions into robust technological solutions, the traditional IT architect title has increasingly been overshadowed

[Originally publishes in 2013] Building and maintaining a mature architecting capability is not cheap, especially in large global organisations. Typically, with a program/project portfolio in the hundreds, it is impossible to assign good architects to cover the entire portfolio. Even merely trying to achieve an effective architecture governance, well integrated with the broader IT governance processes, is in itself challenging and often impossible for a portfolio of that size

Architecting is the combination of people (regardless of their team names or job titles), methods, information and supporting tools that allow an organization to consistently produce IT products with a fit-for-purpose architecture, cost effectively

Architectural thinking accelerates flow and improves quality of architectural decisions. However, it has nothing to do with a particular style of architecture, or architectural framework/process, and is certainly not about any particular technology.

Believe it or not, many people in IT and business are still struggling with the concept of Enterprise Architecture, and the actual value it provides to the organisation. The theory is clear, less so how it translates into real value in practice. The need for well articulated and clear Requirements, however, is well understood. And people generally understand that designing and implementing IT Systems to satisfy requirements generates value to the firm. Rather than EA and Arch