In some other companies, a software architect is called a technical project director. Depending on the task to be solved, he chooses the effective tools, whereby such a selection is seldom completely free from other influences. The choice is often framed by the criteria given by the infrastructure, the topology, or even the customer's strategies.
Architects in the building industry have to negotiate a similar obstacle course to satisfy provisions defined by law and their customers' wishes. In both cases, experience, creativity and wide-ranging specialized knowledge are the keys to worthwhile solutions - not just any solutions, but satisfactory ones.
Only someone who knows the current technologies, who observes applications not in isolation, but as they interact with other systems and with the embedded infrastructure, while possessing the abstractive ability to structure complex interrelationships, can fulfill the role of architect.
From us you can also expect orientation toward clients and objectives, communication skills and short reaction times, and last but not least, a clean style.