Over the years, many engineers have reached out to me asking how to advance into a technology architect role. I want to share what worked and what failed miserably.
Let us start with what failed.
I have been a member of Adrian Cantrill’s Slack community since it first started and then migrated to discord. A while ago, a member on slack asked me to be their mentor. I agreed. But no matter how I explained technical concepts, shared references, or jumped on calls, the cycle never changed. They simply came back to ask the exact same questions again.
There was zero effort on their end to explain what they already understood, pinpoint what confused them, or dive deeper. Yet, there was a constant, aggressive drive to get the architect title.
Then there was a junior engineer who joined Barclays. She wanted me to mentor her. She equated all her past engineering experience strictly with support tasks. At the same time, she planned to study for an AWS Associate certification and expected to become a full solutions architect in three months.
