SharePoint Architect looks very good word but what exactly skills needed to be real Architect?
There is many companies that is not mature to understand what an architect do. They often write in the job description/profile that you should have worked with SharePoint 2013 for 7+ years… They think you are some kind of swiss army knife. Having all these skills that they require and what you list is not possible. Usually they get what they ask for, someone with 3-5 years experience that exaggerate/lie. Ofc there is exceptions but in general people don’t. To keep up all the skills needed over 5 year cycle there is no time to keep up with all details.Â
One important thing as an architect is to build the trust of the development team and get them to engage them self in the work. I always let them be involved in architecture work, design and technical details. Same with IT pro, they are the experts! Same with estimations. Bottom up estimations makes the one doing the task more engaged to deliver the task within the hours than if someone else have done it. I try to  involved to keep the solution together on a higher level and that the quality is correct and the trade offs you need to do.
I think the architect should work between business and IT (talk both languages and can translate between the two) and his responsibilities is to make views/descriptions that both the business and IT can understand, share & agree.
The key to be a good architect is not in the details, learn the things that always applies to all situations. The core and fundamentals that applies to all systems/platforms/techniques like patterns for reuse, testability, scalability, manageability etc. In the end everything is built on 1’s and 0’s! 😉
I agree with Eric, after all as a being IT man (regardless of levels) is responsible to implement right way. But there might two perspectives. One could be from client point of view and second could be IT team point of view. I believe, you are talking about client point of view. While, if we see from IT team or technically point of view, it requires knowledge of everything including SP, DB etc etc. including network setup. But, i believe, few things are not really not required to be called Architect i.e. network knowledge because it can be delegated to network team. But, when you sit in interview as Architect, its being expected! This is general phenomenon which can not be changed! So this term Architect is very confusing like Microsoft licensing!Â
For me, and Architect role will take the business requirements and determine the how to implement a solution to meet those requirements. The solution may consist of out-of-the-box components, third-party products, and even some custom development. Once the project is underway, the Architect can also be involved to help support whoever is implementing the solution to ensure things are on track and to deal with anything unexpected.
Here is a slide deck I made discussing the job roles in SharePoint, the most important thing I try to point out is that the job titles mean different things at different companies. I always suggest going to the job websites, searching for that job title and looking at the skills they want you to have first so you can get a general idea. There will always be variants on what a “SharePoint Architect” is.
http://www.matthewjbailey.com/a-career-in-sharepoint/
You can be a speciallist concerning a special system/platform or system architect, platform architect or solution architect, but there is not really something called SharePoint architect and most things talked in the community and referred as architecture is plain design not architecture.
Architects work with structures (information, logical, physical etc), system/platform patterns, principles, culture and focus mainly on none-functional requirements. The quality of the functional and none requirements, working process, delivery model, what tests to perform and what to test, development team is correct, be the link between the business and it. General focus should be based on the requirements having the most impact when it comes to risk and cost.
If the architect helps out building an application on the platform he is responsible that the platform comply to platforms principles/rules/guidelines if he is responsible for creating the platform he is responsible to create the platform principles/rules/guidelines and that these comply to IT strategy etc. 25% is about the solution. 25 % is communicating the solution or helping others (project manager) to communicate the solution. 50 % of an architect work is to handle all politics in all aspects… 😉
Specific product configuration and implementation can be designed by the architect but usually he got all the stuff above in his mind so he trust the senior IT pro/developers with this knowledge or develop this with them. There is ofc. many interpretations of what an architect do and there is currently an inflation in the word architect, but the above description is how the organisations that tries to formalise and standardise the IT community define architecture role. i.e. IASA.org, open group etc.
