Moussa Jabateh | Pivoting From Coder to Solution Architect

5 min readMar 23, 2022

A solution architect meets an organization’s technological needs to help accomplish its business objectives. They collect requirements, evaluate systems, and supervise group initiatives. New solution architects joining the workforce must possess advanced technical skills and a deep understanding of the business to succeed. Here’s a look at the skills and certifications a solution architect must have to build a successful career.

Do you have at least 6–8 years of experience as a senior developer, team leader, or project manager? Do you find yourself focusing more on how to use technology to solve business problems than on solving the technical problems involved in software development? Then you probably have the tech background, business expertise and communications skills to be well on your way to becoming a solution architect. According to , those who can design technology solutions that meet business requirements can earn a median salary of $132,261 per year in the U.S.

What Is Solution Architecture?

According to , “Solution architecture is a practice of designing, describing, and managing the solution engineering in relation to specific business problems.” It describes how different components of business, information, and technology architectures are used to address a specific business problem. And it is the solution architect who is “in charge of leading the practice and introducing the overall technical vision for a particular solution.”

Solution architecture helps develop products on time and within budget while ensuring that the final product solves the business problem it was designed to solve. The processes involved in solution architecture are various. The first one is defining solution requirements, then finding the best tech solution to solve a business problem, providing solution specifications, and mapping out the parts of the solution. Later, look at how they will work together and communicate the chosen technology stack to all stakeholders (both technical and non-technical). In short, the solution architect defines how technology will be used to accomplish organizational goals while ensuring that any new system to be developed will fit into the existing enterprise business and technology environment.

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Essential Skills a Solution Architect Must Possess

Technical background and experience in development

The most important part of creating a solution architecture is selecting the appropriate technologies for product development or the technology stack. While there are many platforms, tools, and programming languages to choose from, the solution architect’s job is to assess and compare all options to find the most suitable for the problem to be solved.

To ensure that any new system will work cohesively with the organization’s enterprise systems, one must understand how all the existing components work together. These include processes, operating systems, and application architectures. Hence, a solution architect’s mastery of technical skills is paramount. A technical background with a least 6–8 years of hands-on experience in the following skill areas are required:

IT architecture, infrastructure and cloud development
Engineering and software architecture design
Network administration
System and data security
Business analysis techniques and processes
Various operating systems
Database management
Web platforms
Computer hardware and software analysis
In-depth knowledge of coding language(s)

Excellent communication skills

Solution architects must have excellent interpersonal communication and negotiation skills. Such skills will work effectively with enterprise architects and business analysts who decide specific business requirements, including functional requirements (what the software should do) and non-functional requirements (for example, language localization or minimum log in time).

Solution architects should also help overcome constraints like time, budget, HIPAA compliance or licensing. They must document functional and non-functional requirements in a project specification. Additionally, they are responsible for preparing and presenting test plans, technical presentations, lab reports, and analyst briefings, all of which require excellent written communication skills.

Solution architects must also work closely with software architects and project teams to communicate solution requirements and guide them throughout the software development process. Thus, one’s ability to listen, advise, influence, and explain technology to both technical and non-technical stakeholders is vitally important to keep the project on track.

In-depth analytical skills

Analytical skills are required during all phases of solution architecture development. The solution architect uses analytical skills to understand the business strategy and processes that define how the organization achieves its goals. With an understanding of the business, the solution architect can determine: How can specific technology be used to solve the business problems at hand? How can that technology fit in with the existing technology environment? What improvements can be made to the existing business processes or technology? What opportunities will any new system technology provide? What constraints must be considered, such as potential risks, scope, cost, time and resources? Should third-party frameworks and platforms be considered as part of the solution architecture?

Project and resource management skills

While solution architects are not project managers per se, they are called upon to support project management activities to ensure that resources, risks and planning stay within the solution goals. Solution architects should be able to advise whether or not a specific solution is beneficial to the organization’s goals, especially in terms of the given timeframes and budget. They should also understand whether the solution will need to scale or be modified in the future to guide the development process accordingly.

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Certifications Needed to Qualify as a Solution Architect

Even if a candidate has the necessary experience and qualifications to become a solution architect, it is good to obtain some specific certifications to validate the skills and expertise attained. While there is no specific certification for solution architect, there are a number of vendor-specific certifications that can validate proficiency in the specific skills required. These include:

AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Microsoft Certified Azure Solutions Architect Expert
Google Professional Cloud Architect
CISSP Information Systems Security Architecture Professional
Dell EMC Proven Professional Cloud Architect
EC Council Certified Network Defense Architect (CNDA)
Professional Cloud Solutions Architect Certification
Red Hat Certified Architect
Salesforce Certified Technical Architect (CTA)
The Open Group TOGAF 9 Certification
The Open Group Certified Architect (Open CA)
Virtualization Council Master Infrastructure Architect certification

Another widely recognized certification is Axelos ITIL Master Certification. While it is not explicitly intended for software architects, ITIL is a popular management framework that can be a valuable resource for anyone working in a managerial position. The prerequisites for attaining the ITIL certification are the ITIL Expert Certificate and over five years of experience in leadership, managerial, or high-level advisory roles.

One final qualification

Even with the required hands-on technical experience and certifications, and extensive knowledge of solution architecture concepts, one may still not succeed as a solution architect without this qualification which is industry-specific expertise. Even though a software architect’s business knowledge and experience lie in healthcare, education, manufacturing, retail, or any other domain, industry-specific expertise is vital when working with business stakeholders to understand their IT solutions and why they want it.

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Originally published at https://www.toolbox.com on March 23, 2022.