We were talking about architects you do a lot of you know a leader in the architect community I think and thinking like that what do you what’s the role of an architect these days that’s a very interesting question right so I think the term the architects actually overloaded it actually evolved over the years in the early years in the early 90s people even have the title architect like if you were to go back in time and corner and team and say who’s your architect they’re going to say IQ what yeah I mean at most you had like a technical lead team but the things of the 90s the term has evolved mostly because the term software engineers or the occupier but what are fundamentally just developers right but what the architect needs to do is apply hard core engineering principles and practices to software systems it turns out that software is a highly malleable entity you can design to be extended or be reused or highly specialized and be maintainable and somebody else to own it besides its original creator these are all engineering questions no different from the way mechanical engineer designs apart or civil engineer designs and bridge or someone designs an airplane wing or an engine and you can absolutely do the same things in building a software system complying with similar engineering principles and so projects that do this kind of a thing prosper now that’s the one small definition but if you think about it architects today do far more than architecture if you look at the time spent doing architecture true architecture can only be done in cycles boundaries when you’re truly done with the system we do the next system so that happens if we see to five years today when you’re done with the system and the boss is not going to give you more than a few weeks to work on it I mean if you’re like it’s going to be three weeks four weeks five weeks six weeks but the cycle is measured in years so if the difference is weeks versus years that’s fifty two to one let’s make it fifty to one you know that’s two percent maybe spend three percent of the time so even if you spend two percent of see percent of your time on something that’s very misleading to call somebody an architect if only do is 3% architecture so what do they do in the other 97% of the time that also has changed over the last ten or fifteen years the role of the architect has evolved more than just be the technical lead or the architect today they also have to take an active leadership all in process and in technology the active leadership all in process means at the end of the day most managers don’t really care about process just want to have the thing getting up doors make it work just make it work code like hell here’s a desk much let’s do it yeah developers are spread too thin to actually care about bosses so almost by elimination the architect has to own the process and take an active leadership role making sure that all the key things required for success are actually done the other thing is being a technical lead but in a different way than what it was ago 15 20 years ago a good technical each show developers how to do something today nobody needs help with how to do they just go to a search engine fights by MSDN perhaps maybe and type whatever they need and they take the first hit and they copy and paste oh yeah they don’t really value what it means don’t know what it is and just echo it voodoo programming copy paste you move on developers in fact have honed this skill of programming systems this way now what developers desperately need help with is what to do there’s so many ways an option of doing pretty much anything today so a good architect helps them with what to do not necessarily with the how they how they figure it out now if somebody owns all technical aspects of the product and the design aspect of the project and the process aspect of the project that somebody is falling then the purpose the technical manager of the project you don’t manage the developers like paper-pushing pointy-haired did what style manager but you manage the technical aspect of the project and that is the true functionality of the architect today okay so how do you become an architect set that sounds like you know I might need some experience in my career probably not fresh out of college will I be an architect how do i how I become an architect you seen architects out of college people that will bless with built in appreciation for good structure and aesthetics and elegance in software but the thing is how the anybody would give some of the first shot of college the opportunity to become an architect okay fair enough yeah so I think it’s kind of if you have to ask the question it’s already too late right because you have to be on the path if to actively manage your career nobody is going to take some of the using plotters development circa now you are the architect you have to do it before you get the title if to look for positions that are actively looking for an architect if you think that you don’t know everything and nobody does right actively look at opportunity to study with somebody look for a master architect and become their twenties for wealth and wear a mentor absolutely there’s all proactive things you have to do to grow your own career and and become a great architect yeah so you’re planning on putting on a seminar or conference specifically around the toilet I have a seminar called the architects masterclass it’s a week-long class it’s very intense I do it once or twice a year in California the next one is in November I talk about the core set of skills required of architects volumes have been written on architecture how anybody is talking about the skills of the architect simple things how do you talk back to your manager yeah how do you make them do the right thing even if all they want to do is a waterfall sprinkled with a desk much yeah how do you get developers to execute your design how do you ensure they understand it they’re not going to butcher it how do you know what other odd things to do regardless of technology all right and these are set of skills that nobody teaches them and computer science schools right and so this is a week-long immersion in this set of skills very good thanks for coming on the show and talking about architects and I agree with you I think we need to focus a lot more on teaching people these skills so that they can help out these products.
