Question of the week
Preparing for an architecture interview
We get a number of question from people about software architecture and since most of the answers are applicable to a wider audience, we thought it would be good to share them. For this reason, we're going to post a question of the week (we will anonymise and paraphrase where appropriate). Feel free to e-mail us your own questions or to use the Google Group.
The first question is from an aspiring .NET architect.
My primary skills are VB.NET, C#, SQL Server and VB 6.0. I have read your article on interviewing architects and I would like to move my career into software architecture. What kind of preparation is required and what kind of interview questions might I be asked during a .NET architect interview?
I think that the first step is to understand what being "an architect" means to you and how it relates to your current skillset. Taking the technology side of things first, given your .NET experience, what technology gaps (if any) do you have? Is your experience broader or deeper? Then, once you understand where your technology skills are, you can start to look at what the role of an architect entails. I'd suggest looking at the simplified role profile that we put together as a first point of reference. This should give you some guidance as to the areas you need to cover, but it does depend on what sort of architecture you want to move into (e.g. application, system, etc).
As far as interviews are concerned, the questions you get asked will largely be dependent on the organisation interviewing you. Specifically, it depends on how they view "architecture" and how hands-on their "architects" are. I think you need to understand the role that you want to undertake and then pitch yourself appropriately through your CV/resume. Also, make sure that interviewers understand this too and you'll avoid tricky situations where you get asked all sorts of enterprise architecture questions when instead you are expecting .NET architecture questions!
