People keep on asking me questions like, “What is a Digital Architect?”
Is it a Cloud Architect?
Is it a Solution Architect?
Is it a Microservices Architect?
Is it an Integration Architect?
I keep telling them, “it’s all, also it’s none of them”.
Surprised?
Let me explain.
Digital Architect as a role has emerged in the last 5-6 years. To understand it well, you need to pay attention to the words – “Digital” and “Architect”.
“Digital” is about bringing technologies closer to human beings to impact their lives through their interaction, usage, experience and living.
This has become possible because of development in technologies in multiple domains like – sensors, wearables, mobile, social media, devices, robots that we the human beings interact with as well as cloud, analytics, artificial intelligence, visual recognition, and several other technologies that manage, process, analyze information to make the interactions more meaningful and significant for the human beings.
And in that process, enterprises build smart solutions (Google pay), smart products (apple watch), smart services (Spotify), smart platforms (Uber).
Enterprises also find means to improve operational effectiveness and pivot to new business models because of the shift.
Now – “Architect” means the people who can visualize, conceptualize, draw, articulate & create components of such solutions, platforms, services, products block by block – not only just how to build the blocks, but also – how to buy some blocks, and whom to partner with for some blocks.
They are the people who build such foundations for enterprises, extend already existing foundations, and connect ecosystems to improve customer (read – human) experience, operational efficiency.
Having said this, there are some very specific traits of Digital Architects. You already know of them.
If not, have a look at those traits here