[richardw]

Generally true but some architecture jobs have you designing solutions across multiple technologies that you just can’t be expected to master. Sometimes you need to rely on experts, including devs or other architects. The job then becomes finding a workable rough outline and then checking it heavily (and iterating) in areas you don’t fully understand. You don’t spring fourth a design so much as collaborate one into life.

I like people who want the right answer more than those who want to be right.

[cmhnn]

If I take your comment to mean collaborating is good and some people are better than others at parts of a solution because they are currently specialized I agree. The "right" answer is often difficult in practice especially when you depend on many other teams as dependencies and need to get something out the door.

On the other hand if you're drawing diagrams of things you haven't personally made sure could work well together at even a trivial POC level then I am not a fan because that is precisely why some devs hate anyone who is called an Architect.

[jungturk]

> if you're drawing diagrams of things you haven't personally made sure could work well together

If you're producing work products that don't accomplish their job, then you're probably just not good at your job, architect or no.

In this case, the diagrams are to guide development toward an acceptable conclusion, but if they instead impede or misdirect development then you failed.

Fortunately, there _are_ lots of ways to validate a technical design, among them toys & POCs, but also rtfm, reference works, etc...

The architect needn't rough things out in code all the time, though.