10 tips to become a better Software Architect

You have joined as a junior developer, coded for 8-15 solid years. Now is the time to choose between two paths: a) Engineering Manager b) Software Architect.

This post is about all skills needed to be a software architect. Let's start.

1. Ask the right kind of questions

• Why is this and not that? What is the expertise of the team? What are the trade-offs? Is it the best way to do or is it purely a habit?
• You are not supposed to be told what needs to be done; you are paid to figure out what needs to be done
• Listen to the answers provided to the questions

2. Good communication skills

• The ability to bring people to your discussions, interact with them, making your point without knowing them before.
• Talking to a computer is easier than talking to people.

3. Adaptability

• Have an eye on the new market innovations
• Modify your trade-offs based on the changing business goals
• Also be open-minded to better suggestions

4. Prioritization skills

• Prioritise your and others' tasks
• Time management is an essential and evergreen skill

5. Technology skills

• Ability to learn new technology

6. Be aware of switching roles

• If you are good at communication, management may ask you to move into a managerial role and another way around.
• Fight for what you love ❤️

7. Scaling

• Share your skills and experiences with other people
• The more you share the more you grow.

8. Pair programming

• By Pair programming, not always two developers, but a BA and a QA
• Mob programming, generally used to solve production issues and deployment

9. Community

• Getting involved with software that has a strong community like Kafka, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, etc.
• By giving back to society with the products you developed

10. Internal Learning Sessions

• Discussion about a new technology or programming language. One presents but everybody participates.
• Best day to do it is on Monday.

11. Book club

• A book has been assigned and all pick one chapter and a week later all need to present 5 mins on each chapter in the Internal learning sessions.

12. Conferences

• Attending conference is good; speaking at conferences is better for a career.

Summarising

• Technical skills are a bonus.
• Communication skills
• Scaling skills by sharing
• Sharing makes you look good for a career

References

• Career advice for architects - Trisha Gee (JetBrains)

Thanks for reading this far. If you are new to those blogs, welcome, and hi I am Soumendra. You can reach out to me on Twitter or LinkedIn.