What Is a Solutions Architect and How Do I Become One?

The balance of design, strategy, development (often of core services or frameworks) and management differ based on the organization and project. At this stage, the Solution Architect’s role is to oversee the progress of the project in accordance with the solution goals and enterprise resources. Find technology solutions to business problems that meet business requirements defined by the customer. The solution architect is the person responsible for the vision of the solution architecture, its refinement, and realization according to the business’ needs and goals.

They have a clear vision of a product and understand how this product should benefit a business. A solution architect also translates this vision to a coding team to build a highly tailored product to the enterprise’s needs and requirements. It also requires clear communication skills and the ability to translate technical details of the project into simple language that will be easy for non-technical stakeholders to understand. Successful solutions architects are usually curious, rational, analytical, and methodical—all of which are important traits for this job.

Information security architecture

The solution architect, on the other hand, is focused on the business needs of an organization. Their primary job is to make sure that the solution being developed will meet all of those requirements while also ensuring that it is efficient and cost-effective. The concept of a solution architecture is rather complex and includes many aspects required to create a custom software solution with a specific purpose.

Addressing solution architecture problems is delegated and shared across other roles within a product team. Considering that this role entails negotiating with stakeholders, understanding the needs of all parties, managing risks, and product delivery, the lack of communication skills can create a real bottleneck. The position requires working closely with enterprise and software architects, business analysts, and project teams.

Application architecture

For more senior roles, you may need more experience or education, including a master’s degree. Depending on the role, you might also need experience in specific IT areas, such as networking administration, development, customer service, or other relevant areas. Solution architecture is concerned with defining and designing the building blocks for a program and a very high level.

Specifically, they are responsible for bridging the gap between a company’s business strategy and the technical solutions it purchases or builds. A solution architect is sometimes confused with enterprise architect and software architect. This is because their positions sound similar and the responsibilities solution architect performance goals overlap partially. Yet, each role is essential for a project’s success and cannot be substituted by another position. This article will provide solutions architect job description, how their role is different from other similar positions, and what kind of projects require input from these specialists.

Solutions Architect vs. Enterprise Architect vs. Technical Architect

They oversee the application architecture and deployment within cloud environments (public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud). After that, the experts must pass through recertification to confirm their continued expertise and knowledge of the modern AWS technologies and innovative practices. Both functional and non-functional requirements are written down in a project specification.

• Before embarking on product deployment, the role of a solution architect is to analyze your company’s IT landscape to map business expectations with current IT capabilities.
• The concept of a solution architecture is rather complex and includes many aspects required to create a custom software solution with a specific purpose.
• This exam will be suitable not only for solutions architects but also for any experts dealing with Google Cloud technologies.
• If many teams are involved in the process, you may need an IT solution architect who’ll manage software architects to produce a quality outcome.
• In their role, they need to establish credibility with both business leaders and IT experts.

In terms of organization structure, would you think Solution Architecture team should be under Enterprise Architecture or as a standalone unit in par with Enterprise Architecture? Everything you need for quick time-to-value and long-term success through EA. Uncover the value of a successful EA practice, and how that translates to your organization. Next, they propose a combination of building blocks that provides the best possible solution. Describe your product, and we’ll plan its architecture from the ground up.

Related Software Engineering Careers

There are many different programming languages, frameworks, libraries, databases, architectural patterns, and standards. The responsibility of a solution architect is to pick the most suitable tools for a particular project. After developing a product roadmap, the solution architect is engaged in estimating the budget and introducing it to the stakeholders.

As the initial step for creating new enterprise solutions, it ensures that every solution meets the business requirements and fits into the enterprise architecture as a whole. Solution architecture describes how different components of business, information, and technology architectures are used in a particular solution. As solution architecture is more focused on details and solution technologies to address a specific business problem, it provides a channel between enterprise architecture and technical architecture. An effective approach for companies is combining enterprise architecture activities with solution and technical architecture activities. Most solutions architects have spent at least a few years in software development. This gives them a strong understanding of the tools and technologies involved in designing solutions.

Selecting the project technology stack

Technical architects generally play the role of solution architects with less focus on the business aspect and more on the techology aspect. Solution architecture is a description of a specific solution that comprises business-related, informational, and technical points of view. Solution architectures help developers define the requirements and strategies needed to successfully implement a software solution. You can read some details about the components of architecture development in our article on the product design stage.

Enterprise architects focus on creating and managing end-to-end solutions that address the company’s critical strategic issues. There is a wide variety of certification platforms available that offer training, access to plenty of learning materials, tests to practice the knowledge, etc. Nevertheless, the exam can be taken without any previous preparation in case a professional has a deep understanding of the architecture principles along with solid experience in the IT industry.

Solution Architect – What Does He Do? Complete Guide

It’s like hiring a super-senior developer but with deep expertise in a specific field — healthcare, education, traveling, or any other. For solution architects, the business side of the product matters as much as the technical side. The architect then works out the tech vision of the product, explains what solution they need (website, desktop app, mobile apps, or all together).