How to become a software architect?

How to become a software architect?

• I am a software engineer. I worked as a Java developer for 6 years, now I'm working as a Oracle SOA Developer for 2 years. I want to take the architect role in near future but I kind of need to know how I can get there. Is there any book that I need to read, and any exercise I need to do in order to get there in some reasonable amount of time ? I appreciate your help guys.

• Answer:

  Well, this is a pretty open-ended question, but I'll leave some advice. Titles like architect and so-what mean, in my opinion, jack s*it. You need to think about what you want to be doing in concrete terms, not in terms of something written on your business card. What's the actual step you want to take? You want to stop writing code (or simply write less code), and spend more time thinking on integration and architecture of your projects? If this is the case, then the steps depend on your current working environment, for one. The first step would be, if I were you, to talk to your manager and let him know what you want to be doing in the future, and ask for some advice on how to get there in his view. If it seems, after that talk, that there is no way of starting to walk in that direction, then perhaps you should consider another job (don't take my word for it please, I'm just ranting here). Take it step by step. Being an "architect" isn't something that can be assigned to you overnight. Start being more involved in the requirement specification phase, for one, try to know and opinate more on what goes on around your project, and not just the code you're writing. Write modular and scalable code and help others integrate what they build into the bigger picture. If you do this, and you don't work for a complete jackass, you'll be handled more responsibility at this level, and you'll take the role you want to take inside the projects you tackle. But really... decide what you like and what you want to be doing, and work towards that. Titles are crap.