In this podcast 'Joel Spolsky' makes the point that the title 'Software Architect' shouldn't really exist and that designing high level software interaction is just part of a good developers job.

  • ...are unsure that the title "Software Architect" is a good one. We're leaning towards it being almost.. a net negative. "It's almost disrespectful of the actual architects who work in construction, to use that word to refer to some kind of high-falutin' big-picture UML-drawing code monkey."
  • To the extent that the architect is not in the trenches with you doing the work, they don't have enough context, and will inevitably make the wrong decisions.
  • If we had the power, we'd do away with the title "Architect". But if you're stuck with it -- and the architecture astronomy that it frequently engenders --  what is the proper role for a so-called Architect? They could work to connect disparate groups at large organizations, to provide context and reduce duplication for disparate groups that are working in isolation. It can be hard for groups working locally to see the context of the larger organization. But I traditionally think of this role as an evangelist and educator, not an architect.

I think its good to question - Joel has his own small business - so he probably doesnt get any exposure to the change management and political war-ing of large orgs - which I think the title 'architect' helps with in order to get a product adopted by the org.

For a specific software product - I think the only way you can work on architecting some software is if you are involved working at the coal face (to gain respect of the developers and understanding of the problems) or at an extremely high level with some kind of enterprise architecture blocks for 'out of the box' products like SAP.