I think 'Architect' is more of a buzzword than reality. I have known people call themselves architect to shy away from real coding, and they manage to do so using jargons which few people will understand, use politics as the means, AND more surprisingly they get away with all these. These are facts. I believe that you cannot be a successful architect unless you, at one time, have been a brilliant (at least very good) developer. The serious question is, can you call upon an architect for any software system which any technologies? Isn't it that an architect needs to know the technology stack fairly well to architect it? You will need to negotiate with several technology vendors and developers and specialist at the various technology stack. What an architect needs to remember is that there are more knowledgeable and specialist people than him in respective technology stacks. He cannot work in isolation.

I agree with Kevin. An Architect needs to become familiar with all the technologies on a project such that they can have an intelligent conversation about those with the specialists using them. The best way to do that is undoubtedly to be humble enough to learn from the specialists. And it doesn't hurt to read veraciously either!

Tom

First, architect is not a knowing all. Second, architecture happens at high level, business and technical feasibility ground. It does not happen at code level. So, there is not such a thing as a Java architect for instance. The guy needs to have two or more tecnologies where he is an expert, and also needs to actually know about a wider range of technologies too. Architects are not in an ivory tower, they are beside the designers and developers, looking at everything, all days, coaching and picking up problems at any moment, surrounded by experts in the technologies. Architects, like leaders, need self-earned authority. That is, they need to earn by themselves the name. If a decision is made, and people accepts it because the truly know that is a good one just because it comes from you, you have authority. BTW, the a more general name should be Software Intensive System's architect. That means we work on a system, which one of its more important parts is software, but not all. There are lots of additional components. So, in that case, the diagram is incomplete. Willliam Martinez.