What is an IT architect?

Question

Career in IT

Good afternoon!

What is an IT architect?

Also:

1. Do they differ between their stacks or is it some particular direction?
2. What tasks do they solve, how do they differ from any IT director - manager?
3. How does the "coronation" take place, is it necessary to work 10 or more years at the same place of work?
4. Their percentage among the total mass?
5. Is there a RFP range for an architect?

Answer 1

Here it is necessary to specify the question by the fact that there is a Solution Architect, Enterprise Architect, Software Architect and System Architect (if I have not forgotten anyone) Point by
point:

1. Do their stacks differ or is it a certain direction?

Yes, and very strongly.

2. What tasks do they solve, how do they differ from any IT director - manager?

Depends on what type of architect. Nothing prevents him from being a leader or a team leader, as well as playing an absolutely independent role.

3. How does the "coronation" take place, is it necessary to work 10 or more years at the same place of work?

Apply for this position

4. Their percentage among the total mass?

Below the plinth. I won’t tell you the exact numbers, but from memory, even if in large outsourcers in the state they are < 0.5%. In the world, in general, these are a few units for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of specialists

5. Is there a RFP range for an architect?

No. Architects get as much as they agree and as much as they value themselves. In any case, salaries below the team lead / CTO are usually simply not interesting to look at.

Answer 2

Ivan Shumov and others have already said everything.
I'll just add briefly in two lines... An
architect (IT) is someone who can design the "core" of an information system so that it works quickly, expands easily (in width or depth), is maintained with minimal labor, and is finalized with new functionality, integrated with other systems, was fault-tolerant.
Each unified module in the "kernel" must be used strictly once.
Anything that can be processed in parallel should be processed in parallel.
Otherwise, this is already a bad architect who made such a "crooked" architecture, which leads to a decrease in the performance of such a "core" and all other problems from maintenance to scaling.

Answer 3

The architect designs the architecture of a complex application
The director is only engaged in operational activities, their work is not related in any way
Anyone can do it if they wish, the main thing here is desire or experience
Small, since there are not so many large projects and usually there is only one person per project
Everyone I know personally high