How to be an architect?

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But it is somewhat agreed understanding that Architects in a technical team are very senior people who should know everything. This is not a complete truth and nor a lie. What architects are supposed to do (I believe) still varies from organisation to organisation. By Husyn for AWS Community Builders.

The core skill for this role I believe is critical thinking and decision making. For any problem statement different roles in software engineering domain will have different solutions based on their perspectives. An Architect is the one which should understand all such perspectives and take decision based on first principles.

The article walks you over:

  • Types and kinds of architects
  • First principles & decision making
  • Soft skills
  • Business vs tech
  • Biases & preferences
  • Writing
  • Defining & naming
  • Architects to follow
  • Cloud architect

… and more. Any “good” cloud architect can’t be good in one area and be ignorant in other. They have to be a full package for the organisation. In terms of real-life example, AWS architects have a proper T shaped skillset. Yes there are specialised SAs, but even they understand basics of other domain. Interesting!

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