A Solutions Architect is typically part of the solution development team, with their job requiring them to translate requirements created by functional analysts into the architecture for that solution, and describing it through architecture and design artifacts. Once this has been achieved, the rest of the development team will then use those artifacts – which form a conceptual blueprint – to implement the solution.
Within this process, the solution architect will usually rely on design patterns from their previous engagements, published reference architectures, and guidance from enterprise architecture (EA). In their efforts, solution architects balance architectural concerns of the projects with the concerns of the enterprise to determine how the organisation can achieve current and future objectives.
The Solutions Architect is often the development team leader, and as such, they are often expected to provide motivation and guidance to the entire development team. The solution architect must ensure the development team will match the detailed design of the solution to the higher-level architecture.
Solutions Architects play an important role in ensuring that the solution architecture aligns with the what has been established by the enterprise architecture and that it adheres to the architectural principles. Often, the patterns and guidance solutions developed by the architects becomes reusable in a broader enterprise architecture context.
