• The median salary of the Software Architect is $ 77,800 per annum.
• The salary of the Software Architect varies with the experience of the candidate.
• The individual with 1- 4 years of experience can earn $45,000 – $117,234 per annum.
• The salary scale of Software Architect with 5-9 years is $67,800 – $128,700 per annum.
• The annual pay of the Software Architect with experience of 10 -19 years earn $85,000 – $144,780 per year.
• The candidate with experience of 20 years or more can make $98,000- $178,890 per annum.
• The salary scale of the Software Architect also alters with the employment type.
• The individual working in privately owned firm make up to $84,782- $146,895 per annum. And those working in government firms earn $98,700 -$178,903 per annum.
• Based on the specialization, the salary scale of the Software Architect differs. The Software Architects get specialized in various programming languages.
• The individual specialized in JAVA earn $88,659 – $149,381, C#: $82,801 – $141,077, .NET: $80,775 – $140,493, SQL server: $80,245 – $137,447, C++: $89,519 – $152,935, HTML: $79,057 – $146,589, Oracle: $86,162 – $146,602, and Linux: $89,223 – $153,210.

• The salary also gets varied with the industry type in which they are employed. The Software Architects usually find opportunity in various industries that includes software development, IT consulting, financial services, telecommunications etc.

• The IT industry is the highest paying sector and the individual working in this industry can make up to $178,980 per annum.

• The salary of the Software Architects vary with the company location, experience, skill set, education qualification etc.

• There will be definitely hike in the salary of Software Architect based on performance and apart from salary they even get some additional perks like free transport, medical insurance etc.

• The Software Architect requires good skill set and let us have a brief look at the skills required in order to become a successful architect.
• They need to possess good leader ship skills.
• They need to posses superior management skills.
• The Software Architect must be well versed with the basic OOPS (Object Oriented Programming) concepts.
• The candidate should be able to develop the project as per the requirements of the company.
• The individual must be updated with the latest information in the field.
• Update with the new technologies that are helpful for the project.
• Possess good knowledge about the products and services of clients business.
• Possess excellent people skills to communicate effectively with the clients and collect the correct specifications required for the project and to conduct seminar and give presentations to the clients.
• Possess good listening skills to have good coordination with clients while gathering the project specifications.
• Get updated with the latest information in information and communications (ICT) industry.
• Ability to break the complex parts and distribute them to experienced candidates in various areas like coding and designing etc.
• They need good analytical skills to analyze the situation and act accordingly.
• Possess good programming skills to ensure the depth of the programming knowledge.
• They require good non programming skills to detect the bugs and fix them.
• Need to do multiple tasks at a time and manage time effectively.
• The Software Architect need to practical in making spot decisions.
• The candidate must possess good problem solving skills.

The software has various duties to perform in order to carry out the project. The following are the list of duties and responsibilities of Software Architect.

Duties of software architect:

• Gather the requirements needed for the application development from the project.
• Deliver the clients requirements to the staff in the company by conducting seminars.
• Design and develop the evaluation process of the project.
• Implement several latest technologies to complete the project.
• Document the essential programming languages required for the project.
• They execute various product related technologies.
• They run the project on various platforms.
• They implement several design principles to finish the project.
• Make advancements in the several components of the project.
• Conduct research to find out new technologies and deliver the same to the development team.
• Prepare manual and user guide to help the software team.
• Check the modeling part developed by the designers.
• Check the coding part and make necessary suggestions to the developers.
• Integrate all the components assigned to various departments.
• Test the applications and fix the bugs.
• Implement risk management to detect the bugs in the project code.
• They even use risk mitigation in detecting errors in the small projects.
• They make effective use of various testing methods like unit testing, component testing, black box testing and white box testing.

Responsibilities of software architect:

• Responsible to plan and insert new technologies in to project for effective execution of the project.
• Try to know the duties of Software Architect.
• Offer Training to the software developers.
• Inspire and motivate the employees by encouraging them to work efficiently and complete the project on time.
• Identify the correct stake holders and execute the application developed.
• Collect the feedback from the clients and make necessary modification to the application as the user’s specifications.
• Develop testing tools to find out the bugs in several projects and it should be unique.

• It is essential for the Software Architect to get certified. There are countless certification programs available for Software Architect to improve their skill set.
• The certification programs help the experienced Software Architect to gaining knowledge about latest technologies.

There following are some special certification programs available for the Software Architect.

Sun Certified Java Programmer (SCJP):

• This certification program helps the Software Architect to get recognized as an expert in JAVA.
• The program constitutes the brief information about the various functions, methods, Packages, Swings, Studs etc of the JAVA programming language.

Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP):

• The certification programs are affiliated to the Microsoft.
• They teach all the basic concepts required for an individual to become a Software Architect. The individual holding the certificate has priority over other candidates during the interview.

Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD):

• The candidate on completing the certification course becomes expert in the coding part.
• It adds advantage for Software Architect to reduce the complex code and write it in a simple way.

Oracle Certified Professional (OCP) DBA:

• This certification course aids the software engineers and Software Architect to get brief idea about the database connections.
• On completing the course, they get certified as professional Database Administrator (DBA).
• The individual on completing this course learn new business techniques and improve people skills to meet the clients and get projects.
• The Software Architect need to be licensed by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES).
• The candidates along with experience and certification courses can receive great salary package.

The Software Architect must be well qualified and have strong educational background to understand various terms relate to the project and learn quickly the latest technologies updated in the market.

The following are the educational requirements for Software Architect:

• The Software Architect needs to complete a bachelor’s degree from any accredited university.
• No formal education is required for Software Architect.
• Based on job profile the educational requirements of the candidate vary.
• There are countless colleges offering better educational programs for the software engineers and architects.
• Several specialized programs are available to get directly recruited in a software company after completing the degree course.
• Candidate to turn as a Software Architect requires a bachelor’s degree or masters degree in computer science.
• The software engineer has higher chances of becoming Software Architect.
• For undergraduate, it is essential to complete the software development programs from any institute that offers excellent training.
• Candidates with Master in Business Administration (MBA) or Master in Computer Applications (MCA) also have possibility to become Software Architect.
• The Software Architect must have oust sanding knowledge on coding languages such as C, C++, JAVA, .NET, C# etc.
• The Software Architect need to expertise in design methodologies and business functions.
• They must be able to construct, analyze and teach the software technologies or programs to the students by conducting classes.
• They must be perfect in computer subjects that deal with networking, programming and operating system.
• Need to have idea about the Unified Modeling Language (UML) to sketch the class diagrams, object diagrams, sequence diagrams, collaboration diagram and use cases related to the project.
• The Software Architect need to possess vast experience to get the idea about the project and design eth layout related to the project.
• The experienced Software Architect have better edge over the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) because he may have gone through various projects in his successful career.

The Software Architect is the IT professional and has key role to play in completing the project within the stipulate time and submit it to the clients. The Software Architect has various tasks to perform and the prime responsibility is to collect the details regarding the application and the platform on which the client is running to plan the application. They dictate the specification gathered to the software development team. In order to design and develop the applications as per the specifications of clients, it must for a Software Architect to have idea about the various phases of the software development life cycle that includes communication, designing, coding, integrating, testing and delivering.

They record the performance of the development team and submit the monthly report to the organization head. The main role of the Software Architect is to design the layout of the application and deliver the coding languages that are to be used in developing the application. The Software Architect splits the entire application in to several parts and assign each part to the experts specialized in various coding languages. They check the application program related to each assigned component as it not possible track back after integrating the components. The train the software developers at initial stage and explain about various aspects of the software development. And they even conduct classes to brief the functional and non functional requirements to the software developers before the initiation of the project. On successful submission of the application they conduct seminar to explain the working of project and gather feedback from the stake holders to note down the modification that re to be made to the application. They prepare the manual which consist latest software technologies and information regarding the application development. The Software Architect is the important position in the organization.