Architect Archetypes
The distinct scopes of architecture practice — enterprise, solution, domain and application — and the different skills and decision rights each carries.
"Architect" describes several different jobs, and conflating them produces the familiar failures: an enterprise architect making implementation decisions, or an application architect asked to set organisation-wide standards.
Enterprise architect — the estate: technology strategy, standards, the capability map, portfolio decisions. Works in years, mostly through influence, and is furthest from the code.
Solution architect — one solution across systems: integration, sequencing, quality attributes, the significant decisions. Works in months, and typically the role with the broadest stakeholder surface.
Domain architect — deep expertise in one area (data, security, integration), consulted across solutions.
Application or software architect — the internal structure of one system, usually embedded in the team and writing code.
The distinctions that matter operationally: decision rights — who decides what, and what is escalated — and proximity to delivery. The most common source of poor architecture decisions is distance from the work, which is why the practice has moved toward architects who remain hands-on and toward architecture as a team activity with an owner rather than a separate function that hands designs over.