The Essential Investment in Software Architecture

Certainly, software development is not based solely on expectations, faith, or assumptions, especially when it comes to software architecture. During a debate on architecture, I heard a curious expectation: all participants were engineers and software architects. Like many, I am also thrilled every day by the idea of building a better world, but it’s crucial to understand that software development is not based on expectations, but rather on solid fundamentals, practice, deep experience, and a lot of attitude.

Now, imagine combining all this with a multitude of business scenarios, high competition, continuous evolution, various technological decisions, and people in good faith, hoping that professionals who have become seniors in 3 to 5 years have absorbed, besides technological knowledge, crucial business nuances for making the right architectural decisions, even without the necessary experience.

The role of software architecture is fundamental in the foundation of a project, and decisions cannot be made merely with the enthusiasm of testing something new, just because one has read about the latest trend, or due to sheer innocence and lack of experience without understanding that it is necessary to wisely calculate the costs, pros, and cons of each decision.

The last five years of capital abundance in Brazil have brought to light atypical situations and an unpayable inefficiency bill, revealing digital-native companies with huge teams, projects without clear direction, and following a route of chaos, rework, high operational cost, difficulties to continue innovating, and high computational costs.

For decades, while discussing and working transversally on various software projects, I have been addressing the topic of software architecture. My focus is on recovering scenarios in complex software projects and strengthening the software architect’s culture.

And today I repeat with ease that reality has already demonstrated the importance of investing in software architecture as a crucial strategy for productivity, software quality, and operational efficiency. It’s not about a role based on faith or expectations, but on market experience, technical knowledge, and emotional control to decide for the whole and not for individual aspirations.

It’s time to stop romanticizing software development and assume leadership and responsibility. It’s very easy to delegate to the universe or the collective tasks that require individual initiative and commitment.

Does that make sense? Join the discussion in the comments and share with others.

Do you need specialized software strategy consulting to support the modernization of your software? Contact us. Until next time!

Ramon Durães