Solutions Architect Blueprint

Description

Designing systems that meet real requirements — trade-off analysis, quality attributes, documentation, and defending a design under pressure.

The working method of a solutions architect. It covers gathering requirements that constrain a design, the quality attributes that conflict with each other, choosing between integration and data patterns, documenting decisions so they survive you, and presenting a design to people who will challenge it.

Who this is for

• Senior engineers moving into architecture
• Technical leads designing systems beyond a single service
• Consultants who must produce a design a client will pay for
• Anyone whose designs get overruled in review and isn't sure why

What you’ll be able to do

• Elicit requirements including the non-functional ones nobody volunteers
• Analyse trade-offs between conflicting quality attributes explicitly
• Choose integration and data patterns on the merits
• Estimate cost and operational burden as part of the design
• Document decisions with the context that makes them reviewable later
• Present and defend a design under challenge

Syllabus — 6 modules, 41 study hours

1. Requirements that constrain a design (7 hrs)
2. Quality attributes and trade-offs (8 hrs)
3. Patterns and choices (8 hrs)
4. Cost and operations in the design (6 hrs)
5. Documenting the design (6 hrs)
6. Presenting and defending (6 hrs)

Includes a 7-week study plan, practice tasks with stated learning outcomes, an honest readiness self-assessment and a progress tracker.

Independent study material. Completing it does not award a certification or credential.