Snowflake Architect

Job Description For Architect

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.

Strong communication skills. An SA is a techiesalesperson hybrid as the SA is required to listen, empathize, explain, advise, influence, and negotiate.

In-depth analysis skills both from a technical side, especially SQL data structures, and also business acumen. The best solution architects understand the technologies and methodologies used are designed for much larger scale activity and are highly skilled at using what is valuable and discarding what is worthless within the given context.

Solution shaping orientation. The ideal SA will give the right advice for the business result required. This may mean standing firm on a decision and not being persuaded by vendor hype, product claims, or unwanted jargon. This may also mean telling organizations the hard facts that they may not want to hear. This of course only works when it is communicated respectfully, focusing on the genuine needs of the company.

Calm, confident, and good common sense way of operating. Risk management identification.

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.