Who Needs an Architect? - Martin Fowler

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2IEEE SOFTWAREPublished by the IEEE Computer Society0740-7459/03/$ 2003 IEEEWandering down our corridor a whileago, I saw my colleague Dave Ricein a particularly grumpy mood. Mybrief question caused a violentstatement, We shouldn t interviewanyone who has architect on hisresume. At first blush, this was an odd turn ofphrase, because we usually introduce Dave asone of our leading reason for his title schizo-phrenia is the fact that, even by ourindustry s standards, architect and architecture are terriblyoverloaded words. For many, theterm software architect fits per-fectly with the smug controlling im-age at the end of Matrix even in firms that have thegreatest contempt for that image,there s a vital role for the technicalleadership that an architect such as Dave is architecture?

greatest contempt for that image, there’s a vital role for the technical leadership that an architect such as Dave plays. ... This shared understanding is called ‘architecture.’ This understanding includes how the system is divided into components and how the components in-teract through interfaces. These compo-

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