CHAPTER 2Types of Software Architects
It's not unusual to run across software architects who collectively possess diverse capabilities in different fields of expertise. The gain in their technological knowledge is attributed to the paths they chose to ultimately pursue before their software architecture careers. Some emerged from software development. For others, software architecture has been their all-time goal while serving years as software engineers in operations. And various individuals have been maintaining applications and systems in production since immediately after college.
Because of these diverse experiences, organizations often establish classes of architects, ranking them based on their potential contributions and talents. It's not a secret that this categorization is frequently administrative, with the purpose of determining payroll ranks, compensation, and benefits. The common industry practice of establishing levels of architecture roles within an enterprise, nevertheless, must go far beyond bureaucratic purposes. Astute executives understand this notion. Their chief purpose is to align software architecture talents with organizational strategy and vision. This can promote business growth and goals immensely.
In contrast to the common industry practice that advocates ranking architects, the software architect capability model (discussed in Chapter 1, “Software Architect Capability Model”) proposes to match architecture talents with business strategies, project ...
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