What Does A Solution Architect Do?

They may possess expertise in software development, data science, business intelligence, engineering management, design, and engineering. An enterprise architect/solutions architect job description includes evaluating the business environment and providing software solutions that solve business problems. They have the ability to develop software and navigate the complex waters of corporate relationships with entrepreneurial skills. Solution architects focus on being leaders who evaluate business environments and close gaps in business solutions. To put it simply, Technical Architects provide leadership and guidance to development teams. Technical Architects are in charge of a specific engineering, software architecture or implementation technology. Technical Architects play a technical leadership role to define standards and practices that should be followed throughout a solution project.

These virtual models, also called ‘digital twins’, are validated by information collected from the physical and operational environments, as shown by the feedback loops in Figure 3. Solution AEs work across functional domains and organizational boundaries to create this digital engineering environment. They ensure systems in the manufacturing and operational environments provide the necessary data to evolve the virtual models. On a typical day, a Solution Architect starts by checking their email and voicemail to respond to important messages from business leaders, coworkers or clients. They participate in meetings with the IT department and department heads to gauge their business’s needs and learn more about factors affecting communication, productivity or employee satisfaction. Solution Architects divide their time between visiting departments to help them set-up new software and strategizing with their team about upcoming projects.

Solution Architect Requirements & Skills 3

For example,Virtasant provides CloudGuru seatsfor technologists and engineers interested in obtaining AWS certification and recently added GCP and Azure to the list. This awareness keeps tech teams consistently up to date on AWS best practices and emerging technologies. To address the other side of the skills needed, an acute cognizance of technology as it advances and changes is central.

Even though enterprise architects sometimes deal with technical questions like an app’s life cycle and technological environments, they mostly delegate specific tasks to the solution or technical architect. Since they aren’t focused on the fine details, they have the most abstract view of structures and processes and never lose sight of the big picture. On top of that, a solution architect is a so-called middleman between different stakeholders and programmers. In particular, this person explains business requirements to a coding team to develop a product that solves real business problems. Hence, if you plan to create a complex solution for your enterprise, be sure to have a proper solution architecture in place. If a solution is created to optimize internal processes, it is essential to develop a solution that will be easily integrated into the corporate structure. In such a situation, the solution architect must understand the company’s business processes in the solutions that are already used in the company.

The architect needs to determine which of the technologies will be most suitable for a particular project. This is a daunting task that requires experience with different technologies and highly relevant assessments.

Solution Architect Requirements & Skills 6

Even though a solution architect is not a direct cog in the project development machine, he still needs to ensure that every resource is used optimally and effectively. Solution architects offer up architectural descriptions which detail all info pertaining to the cost of the development initiative and the resources required through the SDLC. This allows the client to set up better budgets for their digital transformation aspirations and avoid fine-print costs that may arise along the way. Build a software solution with robust architecture specific to your business need. One day you see a plot of land with earthmovers and bulldozers busy at work,the next day a sparkling new building stands ready to greet you.

For many developers perhaps the most sought after role is the role of the Solution Architect. The Solution Architect is the person who organizes the development effort. They are responsible for the vision that underlies the solution and the execution of that vision into the solution. The Solution Architect becomes involved with a project at the time the Functional Analyst is developing requirements. For me, coming from a sysadmin background, I already had a very strong base of Linux, networking, and programming.

What Is A Solution Architect?

Designing a solution requires understanding how different parts of the business work together. The architect must recognize the corporate strategy and realize all business processes that define how a company achieves its strategic goals. As a result, solution architects constantly deal with analytical work and move between various business layers. One of the most important challenges of software product development is meeting the stakeholders’ requirements.

A solution architect must pay attention to the smallest detail, given that a single misstep can throw a wrench into the development process, leading to breakdowns or an adverse effect on the efficiency of the product. A solutions architect breaches the gap between the enterprise and tech assets by creating and maintaining software solutions to solve business problems.

Job Seekers

Build deep relationships with senior technical people within partnerships to enable them to be GitLab advocates. Engage in a technical consultancy role for Technology Alliance partners and joint customer opportunities with these partners. Build deep relationships with senior technical people within channel environments to enable them to be GitLab advocates. Engage in a technical consultancy role for channel and system integrator partners, providing technical assistance and guidance specific to the selling and service delivery readiness of Gitlab Channel partners. Understand and evangelize GitLab’s vision, strategy, and values to your team while also translating them for application to team-specific scenarios.

I just had to add cloud technologies there and add all the new cool stuff that the cool kids play with these days. On the customer side, there will be different types of architects that you’re talking to, including me, and some mid-level managers to c-levels that are — we can call them agents of change. They’re the ones moving needles to upgrade their enterprise solutions from a legacy to more modern architecture; to move fast, and fail small, and deliver better solutions. Creating a Continuous Delivery Pipeline – Sustainability requires continuous delivery.

Solution Architect Skillset And Background

When you are uncertain about what solution can be integrated into an enterprise ecosystem. A solution architect is a person who looks for the best possible solution to meet the standards of your company environment. Along with that, as already mentioned, a solution architect should have strong communication skills. The success and solution architect roles and responsibilities efficiency of the solution being developed depend on how an architect can listen, speak, and communicate with all the project participants. Let’s go deeper into the processes, skillset, and project input of a solution architect. Companies face the challenge of changing their inner processes and working methods to stay in the game.

• The reason I’m saying to do this is because you’re going to open your mind to other people’s conversation towards the advancement of their technology adoptions.
• They tend to be investigative individuals, which means they’re intellectual, introspective, and inquisitive.
• The latter determines what business structure, processes, and operations allow a company to meet its strategic objectives.
• In other words, solution architects create a bridge between planning at the enterprise level and developing specific software products that will help a company make these plans a reality.

Out of all IT architects, they are required to have the best grasp of the company’s IT landscape in relation to business outcomes. That is why this role requires a high level of awareness in regard to industry trends and enterprise-grade solutions that boost productivity and increase competitiveness. Solution architecture is comprised of several complex processes and sub-processes. It plays a central role in an organization’s efforts to introduce and successfully implement new technology solutions. The main difference between the role of solution architect and a software architect’s role is that the latter deals with engineering issues only. Simultaneously, a solution architect is in charge of ensuring that a software product will solve a particular business problem within a company’s business strategy. The solution architect’s role is to analyze all non-functional requirements and ensure that further product development will meet them.

For example, we all know that programmers write code, quality assurance specialists test if the requirements are met, and everything works as it’s supposed to. There is a need to set up a smooth communication between tech personnel and stakeholders.

Solution architecture belongs to the list of most important practices executed before any tech solution development begins. In this article, we’ll discuss what solution architecture is, describe the role of a solution architect, and explain how the adoption of this practice can help solve business problems. With a solution architect, a project has a higher chance of seeing a successful launch. That’s true, especially for companies that are going to integrate tech projects into their business models. As you can see, the core aspect of a solution architecture is communication. An architect communicates a lot with both the client and the dev team and should provide them with a respective description of the solution. His influence only increases as questions of support, maintenance and upgradation arise.

Their main focus is on the technical decisions being made regarding the solution and how they impact the business outcomes. The rest of the development team will then use the information to implement the solution. Besides these roles, some specifically add an infrastructure architect to the paradigm. This position becomes relevant for organizations that maintain complex hardware infrastructure in-house to support operations. Such a transformation demands specific expertise and skills to make the software solution correspond to the business needs and operations. Solution architects are in charge of designing and creating databases as well as computer and network systems for their clients. In addition to identifying opportunities to streamline operations, they are responsible for resolving infrastructure issues.

Personally, I get satisfaction when I see the solutions I recommended get implemented and see people using them. I work with government agencies and one of the solutions we’re currently working on is a COVID response project for New Zealand. To create, suggest, and contribute a COVID response solution is pretty amazing; because for many people at this time, getting government support seamlessly is very helpful. Many organizations have different ideas of what a Solution Architect should be.

This process implies that the company is reviewing the value of the product or how they provide their product. In such a situation, Unit testing a connection between technologies and business processes must be established, for which the solution architect is responsible.

The distributed software of the global world requires more effort on the part of the SA and increases their need. Perhaps the most important tool in the toolbox is a visual documentation language, such as UML. The UML structure for describing a variety of different views of the software development problem in pictorial form is the most recognizable visual documentation language for developers.