Architecture is learnt through experience, not certifications

This might sound like more of a rant piece than my other blogs, and apologies for that. But I feel like I am ranting on behalf of the many architects I have spoken to over the last couple of years on this topic.

As an architect you would have likely seen this pop up in one of two ways

• When you’re looking to bring on an architect into your team

• You go out to market be it through HR or your suppliers, and what you get back is x amount of CV’s of which 90% are developers and engineers who have recently done a certification and are now calling themselves architects.

• When you are looking to move roles

• There is a PD/JD that is 5 pages long which have asked for 100 different skills and experiences, of which you can do the majority, but there is also a bullet point outlining that you need the latest TOGAF training. You apply for the role and are ruled out because a) you aren’t TOGAF trained or b) you haven’t done the latest version.

This topic is of particular interest to me, as I have a bit of personal experience around architecture training. To give a bit of background, I was about 4 months into my time working in the architecture domain. I decided that the best way to understand what architects do was to try and undertake some formal education. The seemingly obvious choice for this was the TOGAF course, as this is widely accepted as the standard. For me, to be able to properly interview people I felt like I needed to understand the architecture world better.

What I learned very quickly was that architecture is so variable and conceptual in its nature, that it isn’t something that one can just pick up and rope learn (like I did back in the day with most of my university courses). Architecture is something that needs to be understood over time, there is no black and white, no right or wrong answer, which I think adds to the complexity for architects who try and explain it to their business stakeholders.

Now I am not dismissing the value of being certified by any means, but for me I think architecture comes from experience within the domain rather than someone who has learned the terminology and definitions. I also think when it comes to certain technical certifications at the more solution level like an AWS or Azure practitioner, they are particularly relevant. I also believe having an accreditation is well worth it for those that are starting off in their career, as it gives you a solid base from which to learn from. However, I think you also need to be aware that purely doing the training doesn’t make you an architect.

In speaking with architects who have been in the game a while, it seems to me that they didn’t always set out to be an architect, mostly because it wasn’t necessarily a role that was fully understood when they started their careers, it was something that happened with the progression in their career. However, when I speak to some at the early stages of their careers now, they aspire to be an architect, they can see the growth potential and the monetary benefit that comes with it.

The experience that comes from years of working across multiple programmes, gaining experience from both successful and unsuccessful programmes is invaluable to an architect, and simply doing a course cannot substitute that in my eyes.