Rescheduled London events at Skills Matter

Wed, 05 May 2010 19:13:00 GMT

Following last months disruption from the volcanic ash cloud, I'm pleased to say that our training course and my "In the brain" session at Skills Matter in London have been rescheduled. Software Architecture for Developers is now running on the 17th and 18th of May, while the free "In the brain" session entitled Where do you start? is taking place on the 17th of May at 6:30pm. I'm catching the ferry rather than the aeroplane so I hope to see you there!

Technical Architects in Investment Banking

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 09:55:06 GMT

I had an interesting conversation with a recruiter the other day who claimed the job title of "Technical Architect" was nearly redundant in the City of London's investment banking sector. Instead of looking for technical architects, he claimed that city organisations are looking for experienced developers with business knowledge who can take ownership of the software development lifecycle.

As somebody that works in the capital markets sector, I was initially quite shocked by this statement. Although I don't necessarily agree with it entirely, I do think there is *some* truth to it.

I do know quite a few "Technical Architects" that work at investment banks, and job ads are still using the title.
I do believe that it's important for architects to be hands-on, but I also think that not having an "architect" on the team could cause problems; particularly around leadership, responsibility and authority.

I do think there's merit in retaining a job title that implies some differentiation between developer and architect because I think that they are sufficiently different to warrant this. As you can see from the role profile for software architects that I put together, an architect influences a software project in a different way to a developer. It's a very different role. In summary, I think there's a big difference between being an uber-developer and being an architect. And that neatly brings me on to the topic of our next London user group - "From Developer to Architect". The date is Thursday 6th December and there will be some books up for grabs. It's going to be a good session. Full details to follow.

For those of you that work in the financial services industry, what are your thoughts on this? Do your projects have an "architect"?

Coding the Architecture - london tag

Rescheduled London events at Skills Matter

Technical Architects in Investment Banking