Salary surveys worldwide regularly place software architect in the top 10 best jobs, yet no real guide exists to help developers become architects. Until now. This book provides the first comprehensive overview of software architecture's many aspects. Aspiring and existing architects alike will examine architectural characteristics, architectural patterns, component determination, diagramming and presenting architecture, evolutionary architecture, and many other topics.

Mark Richards and Neal Ford—hands-on practitioners who have taught software architecture classes professionally for years—focus on architecture principles that apply across all technology stacks. You'll explore software architecture in a modern light, taking into account all the innovations of the past decade.

This book examines:

• Architecture patterns: The technical basis for many architectural decisions
• Components: Identification, coupling, cohesion, partitioning, and granularity
• Soft skills: Effective team management, meetings, negotiation, presentations, and more
• Modernity: Engineering practices and operational approaches that have changed radically in the past few years
• Architecture as an engineering discipline: Repeatable results, metrics, and concrete valuations that add rigor to software architecture

Mark Richards is an experienced hands-on software architect involved in the architecture, design, and implementation of microservices architectures, service oriented architectures, and distributed systems in J2EE and other technologies.

Neal Ford is Director, Software Architect, and Meme Wrangler at ThoughtWorks, a global IT consultancy with an exclusive focus on end-to-end software development and delivery. Before joining ThoughtWorks, Neal was the Chief Technology Officer at The DSW Group, Ltd., a nationally recognized training and development firm.