Roles and Responsibilities of a Software Architect

The following is a list (which is not intended to be comprehensive, by any means) of the roles and responsibilities of a Software Architect.

• Roles of a Software Architect
• Customer Facing - Evangelist, Negotiator
• Team Facing - [Designer, Programmer], Process Guide
• Management Facing - Evangelist, Negotiator

• Responsibilities of a Software Architect
• Estimation
• Analyze skill requirements
• Ensure requirements make sense (esp. NFRs)
• Prepare domain model
• Design solution architecture (candidate + selected)
• Balance trade offs
• Capture rationale
• Select technology
• Provide technical guidance (research, samples, references, training to team)
• Define development environment
• Automated Builds
• Continuous Integration
• Unit Testing
• Software Configuration Management (SCM)
• Metrics
• Pioneer new technologies; training team where gaps exist
• Troubleshooting/Performance optimization (especially in maintenance)
• Maintain engineering discipline/rigor
• Monitor and control via reviews
• Risk/Issue assessment
• Input to defect triage process
• Assess team member performance, provide feedback
• Recruitment (conducting interviews, identifying organizational skill gaps)
• Pre-sales (especially in a consultancy environment)

If this describes what you do, you just might be a Software Architect...