Das Hanselman wants a piece of this!

Hey Ronald,

In the last 4 years I have been working with many solution architects. It is interesting to see many of them have totally different skill sets ranges from documentation person ONLY; mainly writing technical design documentation to someone who can go to low level implementation i.e coding.

Typically in a big organisation, an architect only knows everything at the high level because their daily tools are Microsoft PowerPoint and Word not C#,Python, or Java. They are mainly there to be the bridge between Business Analysts and Developers. Hence it is not uncommon to see that later during the development stage, the architect will come back and say that one of the requirements cannot be implemented or the time frame is not sufficient. Simply they have no idea of the effort required.

Personally I would prefer to have an architect that has low level technical skills, the best candidate for this is obviously a Senior Developer. He/She can design a solution and write a documentation that make sense and practical enough to the junior developers to develop.

Having said that I would argue it would be extremely difficult to find a Senior Developer who has a wide range of technical skills. Remember building a solution involves multiple components, a typical Software Developer has often had a limited skill set.

What is your personal thought on this? I would love to hear too =)