Technical Architect Reviews - Page 5

Try to increase the depth of your knowledge rather than breadth. You may know a few things but what you know, you need to them them well. Be a specialist, not a generalist. Solution Architects are required to have knowledge breadth but not at the cost of depth. They need to have both. Be hands on. Always get back to a coding role once in a while else you will lose touch. Get certifications. Avoid management roles/ activities in your day to day work. Aim to become the Chief Technical Officer of a company some day. Spend 2 hours learning something new in your field, every day.

Learn new upcoming technology to sustain in this field.

Make sure that the company you are going to work for understands the title that they are hiring for. Research the Company salary ranges for titles. Make sure the responsibilities of those titles are on par with what you want to do and not what they think that title should do. Additionally make sure that the company you are looking to work for has a majority of it's technology less than 5 years old.

If you are remote and don't live in Boston Mass, try to move to the main corporate office. I say this because even though this job may be highly technical, sadly it is also highly political. Internal politics will make or break your success at this company, regardless of success of your technical deliverables. If one is not assigned to you, make sure you get a mentor who will actual spend time with you weekly. Just knowing the technologies involved in the job is only 40% of the effort. The company has substantial "Tribal knowledge" processes and procedures that are not written down. You will be demoted or loose opportunities to fulfill you role if you don't get noticed. Being in the corporate office may improved your ability to gain such "tribal knowledge" while also getting to connect with your colleagues and management on a more personal level. Having this "immediacy" on the mind of management means you have a higher chance of being selected for key accounts.

Embrace opportunities to explore new knowledge areas. To be a successful technical architect you need to have worn multiple hats throughout your career. My path was as follows: junior programmer, operational support, lead for an interface team, worked on multiple ERP type projects (Oracle Financials, Siebel, ...), performance testing, and so on. You'll also need to balance your technology skillset with soft skills: effective writing, how to influence people, project management... Bottom line: you need to be effective where technology meets business.