What Does a Software Architect Do?

The so-called architect is a designer or a structural designer in general. These definitions are easy to understand if they are used in architecture. In the field of software engineering, a software architect is actually the overall designer of a software project, a software organization for the development and integration of new products, and the builder of a new technology system.

A software architect is an emerging profession in the software industry. Its job responsibility is to translate the customer's needs into a standardized development plan and text during the development of a software project, and to formulate the overall structure of the project to guide the entire development team to complete this. plan. The person who leads the global analysis design and implementation of the system, and is responsible for software architecture and key technical decisions [3]. Software architects should be able to quickly grasp the key issues and make reasonable key decisions, have strategic and forward thinking skills, be good at grasping the overall situation, and be able to think at a higher level of abstraction. ^[1]

(1) Experience in all problem areas involved in project development, including a thorough understanding of project requirements, and software engineering activities such as analysis and design;

(2) Possess leadership qualities to advance technical work among teams and make solid key decisions under project pressure;

(3) Have excellent communication skills for persuasion, encouragement and guidance, and win the trust of project members;

(4) In a goal-oriented and proactive way to focus on the project results without any emotion, the architect should be the technical driving force behind the project, not the visionary or dreamer (pursuit of perfection);

(5) Mastery

A good software architect is not just a respected senior technical staff, but also a master of strategy development and organizational coordination, a competent consultant and leader. This is because the software architecture planning and design are mainly cut into the system architecture from a macro perspective, and the so-called design is generally cut from a micro perspective. Software engineers and programmers consider the function of a single component, and a software architect must understand the business purpose and expected results of a software project from a global perspective, and be able to define how different components are assembled together. Software architects plan systems primarily from a top-down approach, while software designers mostly start from a bottom-up approach. This division from a macro / micro perspective is often seen in other disciplines, such as macroeconomics and microeconomics. The essence of this macro perspective is the most fundamental difference between the professional field of software architects and other software developers.

From a macro point of view, the architecture design and decision-making, the scheduling of architecture review schedules, the resolution of all architecture-related issues, the approval of all major technical decisions, and the maintenance of architecture specifications are the main tasks of architecture design. Usually at the beginning of a project, workflows such as requirements and initial analysis will result in planned enterprise processes and expected system-completed functions. Armed with this information, software architects can draft the initial high-level architectural blueprints and make a list of possible factors affecting the architecture. In addition, the software architect is also responsible for estimating project costs, evaluating the impact of the project plan on the existing infrastructure and architecture of the system, and calculating the possible costs and benefits.

In addition to the above tasks, it is also one of the important responsibilities of the architect to check the initial architecture planning and design, influencing factors and costs, and to maintain consistency with the organizational architecture decisions. This usually involves identifying the project's architectural decisions and their priorities, defining problem areas, determining constraints on possible solutions, identifying assumptions about possible solutions, and identifying the possibility of module reuse. The software architect must also be responsible for ensuring that the requirements are fulfilled, as well as the coordination and balance between hardware, software, infrastructure, performance, security, capacity, availability, and system operation, management, and maintenance. At some critical moments, software architects also have to make decisions that are necessary to take decisive, but difficult to judge, coordination and balance between systems and architecture.

Software architects must seek to reduce the impact of possible technical risks on the system. In the early stages of planning, technical risks are usually unknowable, unverifiable, and unmeasurable to the average person. Risks are mostly related to system-level requirements and sometimes to organizational needs. Regardless of any type of risk, experienced architects can list these possible risks in advance in the early stage of the project, that is, the period of building the architecture, and then cooperate with the developers to properly handle and resolve them in the subsequent development period. In addition, the architect must also lead the development team and maintain good interaction with other members to ensure that developers build the system according to the architectural blueprint.

In short, the main tasks of a software architect are to plan matters related to the system architecture level, evaluate possible risks and costs, and effectively use limited human and material resources to meet system level requirements. A good software architect is the core person who guarantees the strong vitality of software systems. Professional architects can help organizations comprehensively study existing architectures and design patterns, evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of system design and possible risks, and help organizations master advanced and mature design patterns through a series of topical guidance and specific cases, simplifying complex Business logic and requirements to determine the best solution for the system. If necessary, it can also provide customized guidance for developers on specific areas or topics. ^[3]