Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a senior technical architect and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
A Senior Technical Architect is responsible for defining the overall structure of a system or a program. This position allows one to act as a project manager who oversees IT projects that are aimed at improving the business and ensuring each part of the project run smoothly.
More tasks for this position include identifying the organization's needs and meeting them, liaising with people from different backgrounds - management, designers, programmers, etc., ensuring the project satisfies the needs of the organization and people using it, breaking down large scale projects into manageable chunks, figuring out which IT products are of cost-benefit analysis and research, explaining clearly to designers and developers the requirements and overseeing the same project to the end, advising the customer on future management of IT needs.
Core Skills Required to be a Senior Technical Architect
Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.
Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.
A senior technical architect should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
Listening Skills:
Listening Skills are a practical ability to accurately receive and interpret messages you receive during the communication process to ensure flow and accuracy are maintained.
A Senior Technical Architect ought to have outstanding listening skills that lead to a better understanding at the workplace between the management and the staff, customer satisfaction in return yielding greater productivity with fewer mistakes and increased sharing of information in a more creative and innovative way.
Innovation:
Innovation is the process of translating new invention into a service that creates value or brings better solutions that meet the requirements.
A Senior Technical Architect ought to introduce innovation in their business to help save time and money giving a competitive advantage to grow and adapt the business in today's marketplace as well as creating more efficient processes and ideas with a likelihood for your business to succeed.
Facilitation:
Facilitation is making tasks or life easy for others while ensuring the daily running of successful meetings or workshops or business at large.
A Senior Technical Architect must use facilitation to process and structure a system that meets the needs of either an individual or a team to help them achieve their goals as well as add value to their lives by making sure each participates.
Networking:
Networking is the process that encourages an exchange of information and ideas among individuals or groups that share the same interests.
A Senior Technical Architect is required to establish policies and procedures that govern networking to form professional relationships that will boost the future of business and employment prospects while maintaining regular contact with each other to gain each other's trust thus developing few quality relationships.
Equal Opportunity and Diversity:
Equal Opportunity and Diversity means having employees from a wide range of background that includes different ages, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious belief, educational background, physical ability and treating them equally.
A Senior Technical Architect is required by the law to create a workplace free from discrimination and harassment to its employees as well as understand and adhere to the rights and responsibilities under the human rights and antidiscrimination law.
Personal Relationships:
Personal Relationships is the relationship between individuals who have or have had a continuing relationship of any nature either professional or informal.
A Senior Technical Architect reserves the right to take prompt action if an actual or potential conflict of interest arises concerning individuals who engage in a personal relationship that may affect terms and conditions of employment and he should not also date a subordinate.
Role Awareness:
Role Awareness is the ability to be informed of your role in a given environment as well as understand the expectations placed on a position and to see how they are met apparently.
A Senior Technical Architect must assess, measure and quantify his employee's awareness of their roles to see if they are transparent about what is required of each of them and review what kind of results they are delivering from their understanding.
Seeing Potential Problems:
Seeing Potential Problems is the ability to structure the current situations and identify developments that could cause problems in the future.
A Senior Technical Architect needs to see potential problems before they occur and work to stop them early enough, he also has to stay ahead of the flow not to be caught you by upcoming issues that could be easily prevented if they were noted soon enough.
Research:
Research is the ability to stay updated on the latest trends in different fields as per your concern or the concern of your company or business.
A Senior Technical Architect ought to stay up to date on the latest trends in hiring, leading, retention, technology and much more by using the newest research methods that allow him to make better decisions and improve productivity.
Technical Skills:
Technical Skills are the abilities and knowledge mostly related to mechanical, IT, scientific and mathematical needed to perform specific tasks in the workplace.
A Senior Technical Architect ought to hire employees with particular talents and expertise that helps them perform certain duties and jobs that other skills like soft skills cannot perform to grow both the business and the employee and bring in productivity.
Hard Skills Required to be a Senior Technical Architect
Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.
Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
A senior technical architect should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.