What does it take to become an architect? — Ramarao Kanneganti Home page

What does it take to become an architect? — Ramarao Kanneganti Home page: "Personality traits

To be successful architect, you must have the following traits:

'The ideal architect should be a person of letters, a mathematician, familiar with historical studies, a diligent student of philosophy, acquainted with music, not ignorant of medicine, learned in the responses of jurisconsults, familiar with astronomy and astronomical calculations.' – Vitruvius, circa 25 BC.

1. You should be passionate: Go back to the quote by Christopher Alexander in the beginning of this note. As it said, as long you are doing a job, you should try to do it as best as anybody else in the world can do it. Your pride and passion in your work makes you the strongest critic of your own work.
2. You should be inquisitive: In these days, there are far too many new developments in the technological front. Unless you are naturally curious, you may miss the right tools for the job. If you do not try these tools by yourself, you will end up taking recommendations from others, worse -- from the vendors.
3. You should be skeptical: In the era of hype and buzzwords, it takes a special talent to remain inquisitive, passionate and yet the same time skeptical about the technical advances. Understanding the history of software provides a good dose of reality, enough to make anybody a skeptic.
4. You should be honest: It takes intellectual honesty to acknowledge one's shortcomings and learn. It also helps in serving the customers and your colleagues better.
5. You should be courageous: Without courage to speak out and confidence to make recommendations, you will never be able to make a difference in the state of the world, especially, in the world of software.
6. You should be compassionate: Unless you understand the impact of your actions you will not make the correct technical choices. It is easy to lose sight of the impact on people when working with machines. As an architect, the choices you make will effect not only you, but also your colleagues and customers, not only now but also even in future.
7. You should be quality conscious: Quality of a work reflects in the details. Paying attention to even the smallest details and balancing them with the realities of the project is the hallmark of a true architect.
8. You should be ready to convince others: As an architect, you should be able to convince your team members, managers, and clients of your vision. It means having the patience to explain to the outsiders, the interest to mentor the junior team members, and the humility to listen and learn from others.
9. Above all else, you should have good taste: Good taste, while being subjective, is easy to recognize. An architect should develop good taste that leads to consistency of vision, simplicity of design, and cleanliness of implementation.

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