High School

In high school, take courses in business management, mathematics, programming, database management, computer science, English, speech, government, and social studies.

Postsecondary Education

A minimum of a bachelor’s degree is required to enter the field, although some employers prefer applicants with graduate degrees. Solutions architects have a wide variety of educational backgrounds. Some have degrees in computer science, management information systems, database management, systems analysis, software engineering, software development, or network engineering. Others have degrees in project management. Many project management programs are accredited by the Global Accreditation Center for Project Management Education Programs. To view a list of accredited U.S. and international programs that offer bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees in project management, visit https://www.pmi.org/gac/directory-accredited-programs.aspx.

Other Education or Training

Iasa Global offers both self-paced and instructor-led continuing education (CE) opportunities for IT architects. Recent classes include Business Technology Strategy, Business Architecture, Software Architecture, Effective Meetings, Intro to Leadership, Presentation Skills, Comparing Frameworks and Methodologies, Universal Modeling Language, and Business Process Management. Professional associations (such as Association for Computing Machinery, IEEE Computer Society, and Project Management Institute) and for-profit educational and consulting companies (such as Nielsen Norman Group, https://www.nngroup.com) also offer CE classes, webinars, and workshops. Contact these organizations to learn more.

Certification

Many colleges and universities provide undergraduate and graduate certificates in computer science, project management, software development, software product management, agile development, and other IT-related fields that will be of interest to solutions architects. Contact schools in your area to learn about available programs.

Certification or Licensing

Iasa Global offers the certified IT architect credential at four experience levels (foundation, associate, specialist, and professional) to those who complete educational requirements and pass an examination. Visit https://iasaglobal.org/Public/Learn/Training_and_Certifications.aspx for more information.

Many tech companies—such as Microsoft, IBM, Amazon Web Services, HP, and Cisco—provide certification credentials for solutions architects that are tied to their specific products or services.

Some architects earn project management–related credentials. The most-popular credential, project management professional, is offered by the Project Management Institute. According to the institute, those who hold the project management professional credential earn 20 percent more than their non-certified peers. Here are a few other popular certification credentials for project managers:

• Associate in project management, professional in project management, certified project director (offered by the Global Association for Quality Management)
• Master project manager (American Academy of Project Management)
• Project management in information technology security (EC-Council)
• Project+ (CompTIA)

Solutions architects need at least five years of experience (more at large companies) in software engineering, IT infrastructure, telecommunications engineering, systems or database administration, project management, or in lower-level solutions architecture positions.  

The ability to communicate effectively with people who have various levels of technical knowledge is extremely important for solutions architects. Other key traits include strong analytical and problem solving skills, leadership ability, a detail-oriented personality, initiative, self-motivation, good organizational and planning ability, and strong teaching and mentoring skills in order to educate and guide others regarding architectural principles, standards, and methodologies. Finally, SAs must be proficient in the use of workflow management tools, various hardware platforms (mainframes, desktop computers, mobile devices, and distributed platforms), service-oriented architecture, object-oriented programming concepts, enterprise service business systems, data management and data quality tools, Agile development and systems development life cycle methodologies, and programming languages such as HTML, Java, C#, C++, XML, .NET, and ColdFusion.