The Software Architect Elevator: Redefining the Architect's Role in the Digital Enterprise

As the digital economy changes the rules of the game for enterprises, the role of software and IT architects is also transforming. Rather than focus on technical decisions alone, architects and senior technologists need to combine organizational and technical knowledge to effect change in their company's structure and processes. To accomplish that, they need to connect the IT engine room to the penthouse, where the business strategy is defined.

In this guide, author Gregor Hohpe shares real-world advice and hard-learned lessons from actual IT transformations. His anecdotes help architects, senior developers, and other IT professionals prepare for a more complex but rewarding role in the enterprise.

This book is ideal for:

• Software architects and senior developers looking to shape the company's technology direction or assist in an organizational transformation
• Enterprise architects and senior technologists searching for practical advice on how to navigate technical and organizational topics
• CTOs and senior technical architects who are devising an IT strategy that impacts the way the organization works
• IT managers who want to learn what's worked and what hasn't in large-scale transformation

Gregor Hohpe helps business and technology leaders transform not only their technology platform, but also their organization. Riding the Architect Elevator from the engine room to the penthouse, he assures that corporate strategy lines up with the technical implementation and vice versa.

He has served as Smart Nation Fellow to the Singapore government, as technical director in Google Cloud's Office of the CTO, and as Chief Architect at Allianz SE, where he oversaw the architecture of a global data center consolidation and deployed the first private cloud software delivery platform. Having worked for both digital native companies and traditional enterprise IT allows him to reveal the many misconceptions that these organizations have about each other in the form of pointed anecdotes harvested from the daily grind of IT transformation.

Gregor is known as coauthor of the seminal book Enterprise Integration Patterns (Addison-Wesley), which is widely cited as the reference vocabulary for asynchronous messaging solutions. His articles have been featured in numerous publications, including Best Software Writing (Apress), selected and introduced by Joel Spolsky, and 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know (O'Reilly), by Richard Monson-Haefel.