What a cloud architect needs to know beyond the technical

A cloud architect's technical remit is well understood: design resilient, high-performing, secure and cost-optimised architecture. What's less discussed is how much of the role sits outside the technical design itself.

• Bridging the communication gap between technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Working alongside the project management team rather than handing off to it
• Catching product-stakeholder misalignment before it becomes a rebuild
• Confirming the solution actually fits the purpose it was designed for
• Tailoring the architecture to the specific business need, not a generic best practice
• Defining functional requirements and implementation stages clearly enough that others can execute against them

That combination — security engineers, compliance managers and risk officers all need to be able to work with an architect's output, not just read it — is what tends to separate an architecture that survives contact with the business from one that doesn't.