HN Explorer

What is a 'Solutions Architect'?

3 points by davidkatz ↗ HN
I used to make fun of my MBA friends for getting hired into positions like 'Success Manager'. Now it seems the joke is on me. Great tech companies are putting out jobs with titles like 'Solutions Architect'. What, may I ask, is a solutions architect? Am I the only one who finds this worrying?

5 comments

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rhizome
I see it as people who are capable of being a one-man shop if necessary. Greenfielders with the ability to describe and select between different technologies and approaches.
mingpan
You should ask the specific companies. Some titles don't have accepted meanings but will mean something to a particular company.
ferrantim
The term "solutions" lost all meaning for me about 10 years ago when I was shopping at Wal-mart for ground turkey. On the back of the package, I noticed that it was manufactured by Cargill. Their tag line? "Cargill- Meat Solutions". Jargon hall of fame!
Sharma
TLDR: Software Engineer + Salesman + Experienced.

An experienced software engineer who could lead a team and set technical guidelines/principles for other team members, who could design complex systems and provide technical solutions for business needs.

A technical resource who could talk to business users(non technical) and can gather requirements and come up with a Statement of Work for his/her company b.y presenting companies product or technical capabilities.

byjazz
> Am I the only one who finds this worrying?

I share your impression. It's a concatenation of two buzzwords that hold unclear meaning. "Solutions" is too vague and associated in my experience with people who want the product without going to the trouble of exploring the problem and clearly specifying it. "Architect" is a title often describing people who stay too far above the reality of implementing the "Solution".

Job ads have a variation of that annoying tendency: javascript ninja, code rockstar ?