From Developer to Architect (and back again)

A year ago I was looking for a job, and ended up taking a job as a "Technical Architect".

But what exactly is a Technical Architect?

Weren't Software Architects a thing in the 90s, cast away when we learnt about Agile?

In this talk I'm going to tell the story of my year as a Technical Architect in government, and hopefully convince you that there is a place for just enough architecture in modern software development.

Transcript

1. From Developer To Architect (and back again) Matthew Rudy Jacobs @ BrightonRuby 2019
2. I'm @MatthewRudy and I'm a Developer
3. But until a few months ago I was a "Technical Architect"
4. From Developer To Architect (and back again)
5. Lead Developer of a Unicorn: What next?
6. Junior Developer -> Developer Developer -> Senior Developer Senior Developer -> Lead Developer Lead Developer -> ??????
7. Engineering Manager? Head of Engineering? CTO?
8. I became an "Architect"
9. What is a "Technical Architect"
10. "A developer who goes to meetings, writes documents, and draws diagrams"
11. What do I do all day?
12. Working in a Castle
13. Transporting Prisoners
14. Understanding the Problem
15. Research and Validation
16. Sketching Solutions
17. Firming up the solution
18. Writing it up
19. Presenting it
20. Attending £1bn meetings
21. Definitely NOT Coding!!!
22. My Magnum Opus!
23. Why does Government need Architects?
24. Government Lacks Technical Skills
25. but needs to make Technical Decisions all the time
26. Historically they would call in Consultants 20 x £2000 / day for 6 months
27. At the end, they provide a report: "Buy this £million system" (then pay us £10millon more to customise it)
28. This is happening 100s of times over right now for Brexit!!!
29. Instead, we say
30. "You don't need this!!!"
31. "Use Ruby"
32. "Use Postgres"
33. "Host it on Github"
34. "Deploy it to Heroku"
35. "Here's our Kubernetes Cluster!"
36. "I will design the system and lead the team to build this in house"
37. In Summary
38. Architects Save the Government £Millions By making decent Technical Decisions
39. Architects Save YOU £Millions By making decent Technical Decisions
40. Does your business need an Architect?
41. "It Depends"
42. "Are my Lead Developers already doing Architecture?"
43. "Would it be better if that's all they did?"
44. Importantly: Architecture is not the goal its a tool!!
45. We only want: "Just Enough Architecture"
46. so...
47. Why did I go back to Development?
48. Government is really slow
49. I like making things
50. I want to buy a house
51. Finally
52. 1 minute of Architecture
53. "software architecture is the set of significant design decisions about how the software is organised"
54. "it turns a big problem into smaller, more manageable problems"
55. "it provides a vocabulary for talking about complex ideas"
56. "it enables agility"
57. "Just Enough Architecture" no more
58. https://pragprog.com/book/ mkdsa/design-it
59. https://c4model.com/
60. https://fundingcircle.github.io/ fc4-framework/
61. Thanks!
62. https://HongKong.CodeConf.io
63. Find me online: @MatthewRudy