Last Wednesday was my last day in the project I worked on the last six months. I've spent a great time working there, learning a lot of things and improving as a professional.

One of the members of the team, Mark, has the role of technical architect. If you have an agile mindset when you listen the word architect is not unusual that a look of disgust appears on your face. Concepts as Big Upfront Design appears on your mind and you start sweating.

But Mark is a great architect. His duties in the team are:

  • He goes to the pre-planning, UX/UI meetings.
  • He goes to technical meetings with other companies involved in the project.
  • He starts thinking in the technical solution of every feature, but he always discuss it with the team and never imposes his vision.
  • He's accessible to resolve any question the team (development and non development people) has.
  • He reviews some of the commits we make.
  • And he writes code!

I think that the architecture responsibility should be shared among the team. Actually, I think that it was in my team. But if your team doesn't have an uniform technical capability it's not bad to have someone who makes the first step.

What do you think? Do you have architects in your team? What are their duties?