From Dot Net Developer to Architect, what it takes?

Question

1.00/5 (3 votes)

See more:

I am working as Software Developer for the last 5 years in .NET mostly on Desktop Apps and limited exposure to web.

I want experts here to suggest me on how can I plan my career to become an Architect.
Please feel free to suggest Certification, Learning new technologies, or whatever is required.

Details on kind of work I am doing:
Day to day work involves coding. We add new functionality to project application. Coding is more functional (business driven) in nature which essentially means following the framework already created and fulfilling customer needs.

I have worked on:
1) .NET 2.0 /3.5/ 4.0 with C#
2) WPF / Silverlight 5.0 / ASP.NET 2.0
3) WCF
4) SQL SERVER
5) Entity Framewrok
6) Unity/ Prism
7) Test case creation using Rhino Mocks.

Right now I am reading book on GOF design patten and planning to read on various other technologies such as Angular, ASP.NET MVC and Mobile App development.

All inputs are appreciated.

Posted 5-Jan-15 9:15am

Malhotra Sameer

Add a Solution

Comments

Richard MacCutchan 6-Jan-15 5:34am

It's impossible to answer career questions here; these forums are for programming questions. Also the answer(s) will depend very much on the type of person you are, your attitude to work and study, the opportunities available in the market, and even the location where you work.

Dominic Burford 6-Jan-15 8:31am

All the skills you have listed are great if you want to continue as a software developer, but there is a massive leap between development and architecture. The former is working at the small scale of code, whilst the latter is at the much larger scale of the enterprise. Being good at one does not necessarily imply being good at the other. Many excellent developers simply cannot make the transition to architecture.

The best book on the subject is by Martin Fowler. In my opinion it's the architect's bible http://martinfowler.com/books/eaa.html

Personally, I think architecture comes with experience. You can read all the books and take all the courses, but in the end, it's down to judgement and experience. I got into architecture slowly, by firstly designing systems with UML, and gradually designing larger and larger systems. I then designed how multiple systems would communicate, taking into account technological and / or platform boundaries. I then got into SOA and have been lucky enough to work on some very large enterprise applications.

Check out WCF, which is the Microsoft technology for implementing SOA applications. I've written an introductory article here on CP that may be useful http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/835515/Design-a-WCF-Service

Good luck.

Malhotra Sameer 6-Jan-15 11:27am

Thanks for your valuable inputs.

Add your solution here

Treat my content as plain text, not as HTML

Preview 0

…

Existing Members

Sign in to your account

...or Join us

Download, Vote, Comment, Publish.

Your Email
Password
Forgot your password?

Your Email
This email is in use. Do you need your password?
Optional Password

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Please subscribe me to the CodeProject newsletters

When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully.
Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar.
If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome.
Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.

Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)