Software Architect

Learn more about the software architect job: tasks, educational background, skills, salary and employment opportunities.

Summary:

Job Description
Educational Background
Skills
Salary
Employment

Job Description

The software architect is an experienced engineer who, through his experiences, has gained the necessary hindsight to have a global vision of the system to be conceived.

As part of an evolution of an existing software, his first work will be to discover the code already developed and the associated documentation, if it exists.

Then, whether the software exists or needs to be created, he will interview the different stakeholders. In general, he will exchange with:

Managers/applicants, who most of the time want more automation, rationalization, in order to decrease the operating costs of the tool and widen its area of application.
Users, who are waiting for a simple, intuitive, pretty software and possessing many practical features.
Developers who, in addition to working on new features, often wish to acquire new skills during the project.

Then, the architect will synthesize all these information and requests, propose an architecture for the software to be designed and an associated development plan.

Finally, depending on the project, the architect can get involved in the programming phase: to appropriate the code and debugging if it exists, then develop the new functionality/software.

Become a software architect

To become a software architect, you usually have to graduate from an engineering school or a similar university degree, and have 5 to 10 years of experience in the field of software development.

Skills required

Here are the 3 main skills of this experienced software engineer:

Know how to appropriate the applicant’s need and interact with him, in order to understand his job and his problems. It is also essential to consider the users and developers expectations.
Have the necessary technical background in order to be able to advise the use of newer technologies.
As result of the previous point, it is important to be on permanent watch at the technological level (eg on OpenClassrooms) and to self-train regularly via MOOC/by participating in trainings.