Why Does Your Digital Product Need a Solution Architect?

Solution architect roles and responsibilities in product development

The involvement of a product solution architect (SA) in digital product creation has a significant impact on development progress and results. An SA ensures the development team uses the most appropriate technology for the product, and uses it in the right way so that the product meets all requirements, and does not exceed budget or crucial deadlines. Great digital products do not come out of nowhere. They appear as a result of intense work by creative minds and skilled professionals.

An experienced solution architect can help you build an outstanding product that represents:

• excellent tech quality,
• a high level of security,
• fine scalability.

An SA will also help you to fit the product into the right phase of full-cycle product development for a better choice of tech solutions and more efficient use of resources.

What is a solutions architect?

A product solution architect is a professional role responsible for designing quality solution architecture, either for a whole company or a single project. The SA role lies somewhere in between the roles of an enterprise architect and a software architect. Enterprise architects act from the perspective of an entire business ecosystem, software architects are more tech-oriented, and solution architects are the ones that align business focus with tech solutions. Mateusz Rosiek, one of Boldare’s solution architects, says:

A solution architect’s main responsibility is to create and manage a specific solution that fits the company’s environment, meets business goals, and enables undisturbed product development.

Solution architecture should draw up a path for technology use and describe the overall technical vision of the project. SAs are responsible for bringing the tech vision into reality. How do they do it? What are the main accountabilities of solution architects?

Solution architect responsibilities in product development

Product development is a complex process that requires the involvement of many IT and business specialists, all working together in order to create a great digital product. Thus, an SA should cooperate closely with other business and tech experts; including project managers, business analysts, DevOps, enterprise architects, software architects, marketing specialists, developers, scrum masters, UX and UI designers, product owners, CTOs, product strategists, and stakeholders.

After setting clear tech objectives for a product’s development and creating a fine-grained vision for the tech solution, SA puts all of it into action. They choose the functional platforms, databases, cloud solutions, IT tools, and programming languages that are most suitable for developing the particular digital application. Then, they run the process of building the digital prototype.

Running the processes, the solution architect needs to make sure the solution meets stakeholders’ expectations and business requirements. Often, they need to translate the technical project details into a language that is understandable by non-technical stakeholders and board members. The SA’s role is to present the technical structure, software behavior, and various features of the solution to all parties involved.

Depending on the type of digital product, SAs may perform diverse tasks and deliver value for different areas of the project. For example, the solution architect’s goals and objectives may include:

• proposing tech solutions and architectural patterns,
• recommending best practices for the solution,
• creating and maintaining a model that describes the solution architecture (using the C4 model),
• deciding tech stack and development standards,
• solving tech problems,
• ensuring alignment of resources with planning and business goals.

Additionally, together with the whole product team, SAs take part in:

• estimating the development budget,
• identifying and eliminating risks,
• informing stakeholders about development progress and costs,
• ensuring and analyzing product requirements (i.e. security, usability, performance).

In digital companies, there are many intersections with business models that work together and intertwine with each other. Additionally, we now live in a rapidly changing VUCA world, which makes the digital market situation very complex and unpredictable. Thus, solution architects must have a broad picture of the whole enterprise architecture - as it strongly depends on market demands - and use it while diving into low-level tech details.

SAs need to understand all inner interrelationships and fit their solutions into the existing tech infrastructure (processes, applications, operating systems, etc.) If necessary, they may recommend re-engineering existing infrastructure or implementing new, innovative technology that will match the business environment.

Benefits of a solution architect’s role for a digital product

The role of solution architect emerged at the beginning of the 21st century. In 2009, the value of solution architecture for software projects was analyzed and evaluated by researchers from the University of Amsterdam and Capgemini. After putting together independent data from various types of IT projects, they discovered a strong correlation between software architecture and product development results. The research revealed the following (source):

Statistical analysis of 49 IT projects shows that the use of solution architecture is correlated with decreased budget and time overrun, increased reliability of project planning and increased customer satisfaction.

The research conclusion is simple: quality solution architecture benefits project outcomes. This means it also significantly benefits newly developed applications and other digital products. At Boldare, we observe the benefits of having a great solution architecture and skilled SAs on board. This is how solution architects work within our company:

• SAs guard the tech aspects of full-cycle product development and recommend necessary architecture improvements or technical changes.
• SAs manage infrastructure costs, accessibility of technologies, and software quality.
• SAs help developers in making accurate product decisions and facilitate planning the next steps of the process.
• SAs ensure the delivery of high-quality digital products with usable features, on time, and within budget.
• SAs guide the development team and provide it with technical advice. When needed, they take necessary steps to help team members acquire new competencies or knowledge.

Wise choices and good management of technical solutions for product development drive digital businesses toward high ROI, and elevate their position in the tech market. Companies that invest in smartly designed solution architecture can gain much more than just a higher revenue. They may become leaders of the digital world and have the chance to partner with giant, globally-known corporations. But it all starts with the SA’s low-level orientation toward tech details which enables a product to fulfill not only its functional but also non-functional requirements (NFRs). NFRs refer to various software aspects, i.e.:

• application speed,
• software performance,
• scalability,
• stability,
• accessibility,
• adaptability,
• integrity,
• efficiency,
• security,
• availability,
• usability,
• reliability,
• maintainability.

Good solution architecture should take all these aspects into consideration and an SA should keep them in mind when monitoring and adjusting the development process.

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Does your product need a solution architect?

Not every product needs a solution architect. Some companies create the role when problems arise during dynamic product scaling or when an existing solution architecture no longer supports product development. Hiring a solution architect is indispensable when the technologies used are not serving the business goals anymore. You need to observe and analyze the situation within your company and development teams in order to figure out whether your product needs an SA or not. So… does your product need a solution architect? It depends. It definitely needs an SA when there is chaos within the project and your product team is losing clarity on its next steps.

If you are just implementing minor application modifications or integrating small-scale modules, you probably don’t need to worry about solution architecture so much. Small and mid-size companies usually distribute the solution architect’s duties between the roles available within the product team. This works for products with predictable outcomes (e.g. landing pages).

If your product is complex and technically complicated (e.g. ERP, CRM), if it consists of many microservices, or if it’s serverless, it will be much easier to build it with a solution architect’s support. And… our rich experience in building applications proves that the presence of an SA in a project strongly contributes to high technical quality and value of product design and development.

The solution architect role is absolutely essential in complex enterprise environments, where solution architecture must align with multiple products’ needs and business goals. In such environments, the SA is responsible for forming a well-functioning ecosystem that fits with legacy software and uses appropriate technology.

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What makes a good solution architect?

Once you know you need an SA for your product development, the next step is to find a good one. How can you recognize a good SA? A good solution architect should have profound knowledge of available technologies in order to suggest the best solution for your product. They should be able to create a strategy for implementing the recommended solutions within your company environment. For this, they need to be proficient at planning, analysis, managing data, conceptual thinking, and creating technical documentation.

A good solution architect should have a software engineering background and know basic programming languages, such as Java, JavaScript, Python, and PHP. They should possess knowledge of various databases and cloud development systems. Also, hardware and software management skills are necessary for a person in this position. So are some soft skills, such as:

• communication skills (especially fact-based arguments and presentation skills),
• people, time, and project management skills,
• high level of agility and readiness for regular implementation of changes.

Quite often, an SA needs to present their ideas to the development team or product stakeholders. Thus, they should have excellent communication skills. When there is resistance to change within the product team, they need to be able to convince others to follow their recommendations. When necessary, an SA must tell the developers that they’re missing tech requirements or going in the wrong direction.

A great solution architect has an outstanding ability to identify and manage technical risks in the product development process. They know how to evaluate and assess risks, as well as how to mitigate the consequences of any previous wrong choices. A skilled solution architect conducts product tests in order to deliver the best end results. They know how to analyze data gathered through testing: performance testing, user testing, security testing, accessibility testing, etc.

When it comes to hard skills, you can easily evaluate them, or ask your candidate to provide a solution architect certificate. SAs get their certification from Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure. For soft skills, you need to get to know the person during an interview or work trial.

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The better the solution architect, the better the product

Building valuable digital products is not only about coding or developing new product features. There are a significant number of factors that need to be considered in order to produce an excellent application or online platform.

A solution architect who is aware of the whole tech environment can create a great solution strategy that will align with the product strategy and business goals. If they are skillful and experienced professionals, their actions can have a compelling impact on the product development process. The conclusion is this: the better the solution architect in your product team, the better the product that your company will deliver. We wish you only exceptional solution architects in your projects. Fingers crossed.

Are you curious how it feels to become a member of Boldare team? Visit our career page and check the current vacancies!