Pursuing a career as a Software Architect

Software engineers, software designers, software developers are all highly interconnected yet distinct roles that a professional can assume in a product/application development firm. However, there is another role, that of a software architect, that has become a necessary element of software development. The article talks about the career of a software architect.

Software products that we use in our daily life undergo an extensive product development life cycle, also referred to as SDLC. In the complete process, various professionals having different expertise areas lend their help in developing and designing that end product. Software architects are at the highest level of the hierarchy who make top level decisions about the included software coding standards, tools and platforms. Software architecture is itself a comprehensive view of the complete software system, which separates it from the intricacies of the algorithms, implementation and data representations. Companies dealing with enterprise software products like Adobe, Microsoft and others are increasingly taking to multi-tier application development. With the explosion of object-oriented programming on the software development scenario in the early 21^st century, the role of software architects has grown by the day and so has the number of jobs for them.

Some of the roles and responsibilities of a Software Architect

A software architect is mainly responsible for identifying and resolving a constellation of issues during the product development process. The main duties that you can expect to perform while in a job of a software architect are:

• Understanding the non-functional requirements of software development and managing them: While system architecture seems simple enough with the architect working to understand the requirements of the client and design a system satisfying those requirements, the real hard work is fulfilling the non-functional or system qualities that users need. These non-functional requirements are generally technical and require a good understanding of the software architecture.
• Selection of technology: A system architect job’s major role is to select the technology on which the software is going to be developed. While this is a seemingly easy task, it requires weighing in a lot of factors like cost, licensing, vendor, compatibility, upgrading policies and end-user environment amongst others.
• Evaluating the architecture: An essential part of designing software is evaluating whether it works the intended way or not. The success of the architecture totally depends on what the architect initially started out to achieve from the software and whether the end product is able to accomplish that objective.

Skills required for becoming a software architect

A prospective software architect must have proficient knowledge of Software Development Life Cycle. The individual should be able to understand IT Application architecture and design methodologies used across multiple platforms. A strong grip over non-functional areas like human interaction, scalability, software ergonomics and performance along with a commitment to quality are some of the highly desirable traits in an aspirant of this discipline.  If you want your career to get to a flyer than you should also possess critical analytical and reasoning skills coupled with the ability to make decisions at crucial junctures of the software designing. These are some of the essential attributes required for a job in adobe or similar multi-national software firm.

Career Prospects for a Software Architect    

The prospects of a software architect have improved considerably in the recent times. Major software development firms who are into developing enterprise applications are hiring qualified software architects for their new projects. Qualified here implies at least a major in computer science.  Besides, an engineering degree in computer science or IT can land you one of the coveted Adobe Jobs or a career opportunity at any other big software firm like Microsoft, Google or Apple. IT industry followed by core application development industry is the biggest recruiters of software architects.

Author Bio:

Rashmi is a professional writer and a passionate blogger. She writes on employment issues and provides useful career advice to freshers and experienced professionals.