[hellohello1]

Nah sounds like a seasoned architect. The first thing I had to unlearn was that I had any say over my architecture.

Maybe the problem with software architects is that they only exist in bureaucratically hellish companies, and exist as a scapegoat for bad management decisions?

Or maybe I'm just jaded.

[treis]

Your experience matches mine. I can think of twice where I stood my ground and argued with a more senior person. Both times I was shown to be right technically but that came at a big cost to my career. I would have been much better off letting the project crash and burn.

I think there are senior people that are different. Hell, there might be companies full of them. But I'd need to see first hand proof of it before doing anything harder than gentle pushback.