Solution Architect: Role & Responsibilities

As a rule, these top-level specialists have already achieved outstanding results in development, team leading, or project management. They must possess in-depth expertise and long-term experience on both the technology and non-technology side of projects. This understanding allows them to design superior product solutions that meet these needs while ensuring that the architecture is optimized for performance, scalability, and maintainability.

A software architect is a person who ensures that you spend money on tech solutions wisely instead of taking a shot in the dark. Specifically, they are responsible for bridging the gap between a company’s business strategy and the technical solutions it purchases or builds. During the development process, there are usually several stakeholders who are both technical and non-technical. The solution architect should consider all software development requirements and provide updates about the development process, expenses, etc. 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.

Software Architect vs Software Engineer

First, they create a technical vision to show how the software will cover business needs. Next, they pass their tech vision to the development team who starts working on the solution. But solution architects aren’t the only architects when it comes to software development. Solution architects may work on multiple projects at the same time, which requires what is a solution architect role effective time management and prioritization skills. They may also be responsible for managing project budgets, timelines, and resources, ensuring that the solutions they design are delivered on time and within budget. This specialist is responsible for making sure the future solution will perfectly fit all business requirements and end-user needs.

  • The certifications are aimed at assessing the overall knowledge, abilities, and experience of specialists and at proving their proficiency.
  • While technical and solutions architects have technical vision and expertise, the technical architect focuses more on the engineering side of operations.
  • However, a technical architect is responsible for overseeing technical engineering and implementation.
  • They should be competent in monitoring system performance, security, and availability and be able to resolve application and hardware issues as they arise.
  • The highest credential is the ITIL Master for those professionals who work in IT service management and have extensive experience with ITIL practices.
  • The principal involvement of Enterprise Architects is ensuring the company, as an entity, has streamlined IT application lifecycles and uses the technologies best suited for each application.
  • This process is led by the Solution Architect and involves the key collaborations depicted in Figure 1.

He must examine the limitations of the project in order to optimize possible alternatives and reduce risks. In general, the solution architect is the link between the technical team and the project manager. It ensures the speed and accuracy of information transfer, as well as controls key development processes.

What is a solutions architect? A vital role for IT-business alignment

To make it clearer, let’s look at the tasks solution architect job description should include. The role of a solution architect is to ensure the product meets business requirements and requirements from other stakeholders. The primary role of a solution architect is to ensure the product meets business requirements and requirements from other stakeholders. To solve customer business challenges, we’ve assembled a team of 9 experts, including DevOps practitioners with deep expertise in IT structure management and software development.

what is a solution architect role

In addition, it is a bonus to know about business analysis techniques and processes. Before talking about the role of a solution architect, let’s figure out what solution architecture is. In short, it’s the process of designing, describing, and managing technology solutions and ensuring that they match specific business problems. Let’s say you want to find a way to protect your customers’ data — that is a business issue. To solve it, you need a solution architecture that will help you decide on the type of technology and software you should use.

Core Solutions Architect Skills and Background

After that, the experts must pass through recertification to confirm their continued expertise and knowledge of the modern AWS technologies and innovative practices. It’s a solution architect’s responsibility to ensure that the login process goes as fast and seamless and possible. These experts have recently been popular as CI/CD (continuous integration and continuous deployment) gets increasingly integrated into the business. They create the CI/CD pipeline not only for the software to be deployed but also for supplying infrastructures (especially in the cloud such as Infrastructure as Code). According to the Pulse report, only 62% of projects met original goals, 53% were completed within the original budget, and 49% were completed on time. In the case of enterprise software projects, these overruns may lead to huge financial losses.

what is a solution architect role

CTO at Emizentech and a member of the Forbes technology council, Amit Samsukha, is acknowledged by the Indian tech world as an innovator and community builder. He has a well-established vocation with 12+ years of progressive experience in the technology industry. He directs all product initiatives, worldwide sales and marketing, and business enablement. He has spearheaded the journey in the e-commerce landscape for various businesses in India and the U.S. The solution architect ensures the outcome fulfills all the business needs and stakeholders’ requirements.

Enterprise Architect vs. Solution Architect

As a solutions architect, you will need to understand the business side of the organization to understand which IT solutions will fit the company’s goals. Your leadership skills will be important for steering the overall process of identifying key business objectives and determining the requirements for each solution. A solutions architect is responsible for evaluating an organization’s business needs and determining how IT can support those needs leveraging software, hardware, or infrastructure. Aligning IT strategy with business goals has become paramount, and a solutions architect can help determine, develop, and improve technical solutions in support of business goals.

what is a solution architect role

Usually, companies already have operating systems, an information context, and integration requirements. The solution architecture helps ensure that a new system will fit the existing enterprise environment. To perform this task, a solution architect has to understand how all parts of the business model work together including processes, operating systems, and application architectures. Understanding these aspects, they will be able to design a specific solution that fits the environment best. But solution architect is a broader concept and may include technical architect responsibilities. A solution architect is responsible for not only the technical part of an IT system but also for business processes, analysis of domain area, data processing, cooperation with the digital marketing team, etc.

What Is a Solutions Architect? How to Become One, Salary, Skills.

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. Of course, you always want to make sure you’re in front of these people if they need to talk to you. Throughout the entire buying process, you always want to make yourself available. As far as technical background, Solution Architects come from a variety of fields including computer science, information technology, software engineering, and other areas related to technology.

Each solution architect role is valuable for the overall working process of the IT system. There is no practice ignoring the roles and responsibilities in solution architecture development. One https://www.globalcloudteam.com/ more role of solution architect may be included, such as the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) planning. From the other perspective, a solution architect is not a project manager (PM).

How Enterprise Architects Close the Gap between Technology and Business

In this article, we’ll talk about what a Solutions Architect does, what the main requirements for this role are, how much these professionals typically earn, and how to become one of them. Electronic Health Records have become a major cornerstone of the modern health system and a must-have for any medical organization. Learn about Epic and Cerner EHR, two major vendors, and which one to choose for your health information management project. Read about the potential of Smart EMR and learn how this cutting-edge solution can transform how healthcare providers work. Define solution requirements, key features of the solution, and phases of implementation. While it is a challenging role, it is also a role born out of experience, which helps bear the burden of an entire solution deployment.