The solution architect must understand all these constraints, compare them, and then make a number of technological and managerial decisions to reconcile these restrictions with project goals. Having discussed the peculiarities of the other two roles, we can see that a solution architect’s position is in between the top-level, business-oriented enterprise architect and the more technical and detail-oriented software architect. Solution architecture is a practice of designing, describing, and managing the solution engineering in relation to specific business problems. The last part of identifying the target end state involves identifying which technical “solution” best meets the stated requirements. And, while this step may start as a paper exercise, for large-scale modernization and transformation programs there really is no replacement for lab testing and pilot implementations that stress-test new technical solutions in a production environment. While you don’t want to create analysis paralysis, it’s important to review market alternatives with the clear understanding that no offering is perfect. That said, the optimal offering is most certainly the function of a broader, more comprehensive solution set that considers many different possibilities.

Business Capabilities Read everything about business capabilities and business capability modeling. Integration Architecture Get to know everything about what is Integration Architecture, what the key advantages are and how to visualize it in the best possible way. Solutions architects early in their food delivery app development career report earning an average salary of $94,000 per year. As experience rises to mid-career, the average reported salary ranges from $115,000 to $137,000 per year. For late-career solutions architects with 20 years or more of experience, the average reported salary is $135,000 per year.

Many of them might start out as software developers, analysts or project managers. According to Study.com, however, while certification is not mandatory, some certificates showcase that a solutions architect has expertise in certain it solutioning fields. As such, there are specific programs that certify professionals in systems architecture — and some employers might even require their solutions architects to participate in these programs or other forms of periodic training.

Personal Tools

Their main task is to provide technical leadership and make decisions regarding the most vital parts of the system that is being developed. Having a clear vision for the project, and a clear understanding of the client’s business needs, a solutions architect maps out the parts that will constitute the software solution and how they are going to work together. In other words, businesses need to perform the digital transformation of their core operations, which is to transfer core processes to software solutions, streamlining them. As this transition is highly complex , every company needs an expert with a particular skill set and a knack for balancing business needs with different nuances of technology solutions. Regardless of education and certifications, solutions architects typically have years of experience within software or system development teams before they land leadership roles as architects.

One of the most important challenges of software product development is meeting the stakeholders’ requirements. Usually, a product has a number of stakeholders that are both technical and non-technical specialists. Solution architecture’s aim is to ensure that all their requirements are taken into account.

While enterprise architects define strategic directions, solution architects bridge the gap between business requirements and the implementation of technology solutions. Past experiences have shown that without this link, almost half of all IT projects tend to fail. Expectedly, the role of a solution architect requires technical education and hands-on experience across all major areas of the software development process as well as hardware engineering expertise . They are often in front of management, trying to explain a complex problem in laymen’s terms. They have to find ways to say the same thing using different words for different types of audiences, and they also need to really understand the business’ processes in order to create a cohesive vision of a usable product.

What Is A Solutions Architects Role In A Company?

Enterprise architects also need to be comfortable with communicating the value of new IT strategies to the executive leadership team and stakeholders. In fact, a lot of their time is spent on people and decision-making processes. 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. 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. As a solutions architect, you’ll want to get certified in any relevant skills or technologies for your industry or field.

Although experience is not always required, several years of network administration experience is beneficial. As the job title implies, a solutions architect primarily focuses on solution-level decisions and evaluation of their impact on a client’s overarching business objectives and their outcomes. As a Technical Lead, I was the communication point for my team as well as leading the actual solution delivery, getting my hands dirty. As a Solution Architect, I became untethered from delivery, sitting outside of the teams doing the actual work. Hopefully, this post has helped you understand better what this role is all about. Solution Architecture has been an incredibly rewarding process, and I am very grateful to work with a team that empowers its members to offer input on what I consider to be the most important phase of product/solution development.

Some solution architects may look after the programming, integration, and testing of software systems and associated devices. The process used by a solution architect typically involves selecting the most appropriate technology for a problem, and also involves balancing architectural concerns of the project with the concerns of the enterprise.

Solution Architect Role Description And Responsibilities

A solution architect is the person in charge of leading the practice and introducing the overall technical vision for a particular solution. Frequently, providers’ so-called solutions don’t represent any value or utility for the enterprise customer at all, which isn’t much of a solution, if you ask me. Cloud solution providers offer consulting and professional services around one or more cloud platforms, helping customers use public, private and hybrid cloud environments to solve business problems.

Right in the middle are solution architects who have the potential to receive an annual income of up to $116,000. The average annual income of a specialized Java architect is indicated as $79,000. The average salary for a solutions architect is $119,000 per year, according to data from PayScale. Reported salaries range from $75,000 to $160,000 per year, and entry-level workers average around $76,000 per year. The highest paid solutions architects are located in San Jose and San Francisco, where the reported average salaries are $144,000 and $132,000 per year, respectively. Work with product and delivery teams to develop scalable solutions and products.

Senior Solution Designer Micoach

Non-Architects often don’t really understand what Architects do or the value they provide and often consider the Architect to simply be a more senior techie. And Architects themselves can support that confusion by playing to that stereotype. I usually find it challenging to explain my role to friends and colleagues. Having mostly worked as a software developer, I often get asked things like, “So you sketch buildings now? ” And while sketching is certainly a part of an architect’s job, there is plenty more to this role. Often times, a business already has operating systems in place, but it might need to advance existing systems or add new systems that can integrate and seamlessly communicate with the existing systems. Slideshare uses cookies to improve functionality and performance, and to provide you with relevant advertising.

Because a solution architect is responsible for the design of one or more applications or services for a business, he or she must have a mix of technical and business skills, according to Sokanu. This means process and people skills, as well as the ability to effectively communicate their assessments and recommendations before management. “So the solution architect assumes primary responsibly for making some of the bigger decisions around the nature of the solution,” Hahladkis explains. The solution architect becomes involved with a project at the time the computer systems analyst is developing requirements. They organize the development effort, and are often expected to provide motivation and guidance to the entire development team during the systems development life cycle.

System And Solution Architect

Providing updates to stakeholders on product development processes, costs, and budgets. Solution selling is effective because it focuses on the ROI of a product, not its feature set or sticker price. Whether you’re a sales manager or individual salesperson, make sure you understand and can demonstrate your product’s value.

To successfully design, create, and lead the development of a software solution, a solutions architect needs to have a certain skill set. A solution architect job, Techopedia explains, can be a combination of roles intended to address business needs and requirements, as well as tackle business problems, through the design and development of applications and information systems. Modern IT services are provided through various channels, at different layers of abstraction, such as SaaS, Managed App, PaaS, Managed Infrastructure, IaaS, and across various offerings and platforms. What is crucial is to assign at the interfaces of these two groups, the resources having the right technical and/or business skillsets to enable an efficient communication. The company can’t assume the integrator to be completely familiar with its business processes, and on another hand, the integrator can’t expect his customer to be fully proficient with his IT solutions. This is really the ability to enduringly and mutually understand & formalize the gaps to be filled between the business needs and the plug-and-play solution, which will make the project a success or failure. While a solution architect doesn’t directly get involved in project management, accounting for deadlines and given resources is inevitable.

Views

In contrast to many bureaucratic tenders (which often go from nothing to tender win, to ‘you’re stuck with it) these are more gradual processes where you might jettison some options sooner rather than later and test some in parallel for longer periods. Enterprise architects have the most overarching view of the organization and know of its capabilities and potentials. They play a key role when it comes to identifying business needs in context with external factors like competitors and internal factors like a company’s IT landscape. They are in charge of analyzing current trends in technology architecture and educating technology departments about new frameworks and best practices. In this context, the enterprise architect needs to make sure that the right enterprise infrastructure is created while the new applications meet all business standards and are in line with the company’s integrity. In the first step, solution architecture specialists closely look at how the different elements of business, information and technology can be applied to solve a specific problem. Solutions architects are a vital role in any organization that wants to align its business goals and needs with IT services, products, software, and infrastructure.

But the point to take away is that during development you’re plugging these systems together, each part complete in it’s own right. The work is software development and solutioning is highly related term, but when we think of the former we think of programming while the later refers to a concern at a higher level. This is why we say the architect performs solutioning, and it is an activity that is nearly it solutioning exclusive to the domain of IT architecture . All programming in a sense is problem solving, but regardless of the specific type of solution architect their ongoing duty is to solve problems. They are not hired to solve specific problems but also solve future issues. For this reason they describe their work as “solutioning”, a term which encapsulates this idea of an ongoing problem solving process.

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. In today’s fast-moving technology world, businesses cannot afford to develop more than a few new ideas if they use traditional product development methodologies such as the “Waterfall” method of sequential design, prototyping and test. In the software world, “Agile” development methods such as “Scrum” have all but supplanted the former slow and expensive methods. If we have a method that can develop a working, customer-usable prototype in a few weeks or months instead of years, then many new solution ideas can be tested on the market in a relatively short time.

• Ideally, technical architects are experienced working with on-premise and cloud native infrastructures and know how to deploy an application in the most effective way.
• Compared to the solution and enterprise architect, technical architects take the most hands-on approach during the execution of IT projects.
• As solution architecture is more focused on details and solution technologies to address a specific business problem, it provides a channel between enterprise architecture and technical architecture.
• We know that grand designs, while put together with the best intentions, are often the ones that hit the icebergs.
• They test, integrate, and program software systems to ensure that specific business issues are solved.
• They are ultimately responsible for the vision that underlies the solution and the execution of that vision into the solution.

Understanding how different parts of the business operation are connected with each other and how business processes achieve their goals. Analyze the impact of the solution on the state of the business’ goals and direct outcomes of solution implementation. The solution description may also include other relevant aspects, such as budget, alternative options, etc. This description is subsequently presented to the project’s stakeholders. Enable the Continuous Delivery Pipeline and DevOps – Making effective decisions in the face of changing or unknown needs requires Agile teams to receive fast feedback on the solution’s effectiveness. Architect/Engineering support this need by advocating for, and steering the development and improvement of, the Continuous Delivery Pipeline, as well as helping to enable Release on Demand. System Architect/Engineering operates mainly in the context of the ART, where they work with Agile Teams and provide technical enablement concerning subsystems and capability areas for an ART.

Stay up to date with the latest marketing, sales, and service tips and news. According to job search sites, the average salary for a Solutions Architect role can vary widely depending on the location, education, certifications, additional skills, the number of years in the profession, etc. In our rapidly evolving world driven by new realms, organizations feel the need to change their operating methods and techniques to face the emerging business challenges and fluctuating customer demand. A not-for-profit organization, IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. We are honored to receive the 2018 Excellence in Service Innovation Award from the International Society of Service Innovation Professionals for our entry “Data Analytical Tool set for enterprise IT Service Deals’ Solutioning.” . Price-to-Win analytics, where novel approaches combining revenue analytics and machine learning are used to optimally price complex services, with the aim of maximizing longer-term expected revenues, putting in consideration provider-client relationships. We use your LinkedIn profile and activity data to personalize ads and to show you more relevant ads.

Author: Alex Russell