It was my choice to be a software architect. I was more inclined towards technology rather than the management. I started working as an application architect since four years back. After few of the architecture assignments I really wanted to spread my wings. I wanted to explore architecture practice as a solution or enterprise architect where you can contribute in a bigger and complex level "IT implementations".
But then I realized this role is just a dream with any of the IT companies in india. I am specially talking about companies which provide IT services to their clients. Infact I was surprised that there is no growth plan for software architects in these companies. Once you are an architect aka application architect, thats it!! There is no concept of solution or enterprise architect over here.
Can you imagine an architect doing the sales work? Well in other sectors [for e.g. construction, manufacturing this will sound crazy I am sure. But somehow its quite an integral part of software industry. Yes an architect is involved in sales activities. Infact all the senior architects [solution, portfolio, enterprise ...etc] do the same sort of work irrespective of their variant names. And if you dont opt for it, you are stuck. You are stuck at the lowest level of architect profile.
One reason for this could be that most of the clients have their own architecture teams and bigger decisions are always taken by them. There might be some more probable reasons responsible for this profile twist at IT companies [services]. Well I dont care about the reasons, what I care about is of my interest and the professional growth associated with it.
You might ensure both of these if you are at the other side. Which means you have to drop the idea of working with IT service provider [in india] and have to join their clients counterparts [in US/Europe]. Unfortunately most of these IT organizations are overseas and decisions are not easy to make.
So my urge to all of those architecture arpirants in software industry is to think over it. Apart from the limitations I discussed above there are many challenges with this profile. Software industry is still trying to get matured and architect profile has a long way to go.
