Hey there, Senior Engineer! You’ve reached a significant milestone in your career journey, and now it’s time to chart the course for what’s next. In this blog post, we’re diving deep into a crucial aspect of seniority: mastering software architecture and design.
These skills aren’t just nice-to-haves they’re essential for staying sharp and competitive in today’s tech landscape. So, grab your coffee and get ready to explore the ins and outs of software architecture and design.
Picking up new skills: Software architecture and design
To continue evolving your software design and architecture skills, there are two key pillars you need to focus on, and one helpful “shortcut.” First and foremost, you should always make it a priority to continue studying and learning in this field. Technology is constantly evolving, and staying up-to-date with the latest tools, techniques, and approaches is essential to remaining competitive in your career.
Additionally, it’s important to understand that design and architecture go hand in hand. You can’t excel at one without a good understanding of the other. If you only focus on design, you might miss critical architecture considerations. On the other hand, if you only focus on architecture, you might end up over-architecting and neglecting the importance of good design.
Learning software architecture and design can be a challenge, especially since it’s not as straightforward as learning a new coding language. As the saying goes, software architecture and design are the things you can’t simply Google. This means that you’ll need to rely on two main sources for learning:
📕 Books
When it comes to these topics, there’s no substitute for diving deep into the subject matter. While video tutorials can be helpful, books are the raw source that will give you the depth of knowledge you need to truly understand these complex topics. If you’re looking for a good place to start, I highly recommend checking out these books:
“Head First Design Patterns” by Eric Freeman and Elisabeth Robson is a friendly and engaging introduction to design patterns and object-oriented programming. This book presents the material in a fun and approachable way, making it easy to understand and retain.
“Fundamentals of Software Architecture: An Engineering Approach” by Mark Richards and Neal Ford covers the essential principles of software architecture and provides practical guidance for designing scalable and maintainable systems. The authors break down complex topics into easy-to-understand explanations and provide real-world examples to illustrate their points.
“Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code” by Martin Fowler is a classic book that every software developer should read. It teaches you how to improve the design of existing code by making small, focused changes. While this book is a challenging read, it’s well worth the effort if you want to improve your design skills.
🗞️ News
Keeping up-to-date with the latest technologies is critical, as they will undoubtedly shape the future of software engineering. For example, Kubernetes, which was introduced less than a decade ago, has become the default choice for many in the industry. Therefore, it’s crucial to stay informed about the latest tech news to remain relevant and competitive.
When seeking out news, focus on topics that are specific to the technologies you want to learn, such as Golang, Kubernetes, and Microservices. Additionally, broad technology trends will give you a better understanding of the bigger picture, enabling you to anticipate and prepare for future developments. By staying on top of tech news, you’ll be exposed to innovative ideas and emerging trends that will help you think outside the box and stay ahead of the curve. Some of my personal sources for news are:
Newsletters:
freeCodeCamp
TLDR Newsletter – A Byte-Sized Daily Tech Newsletter
Awesome Go
Coding Blogs:
Like mine!
Martin Fowler
Dev.to
Youtube Channels:
Practice, practice, and more practice
The other pillar, as you probably already guessed, is experience. You must expose yourself to an ever-growing list of new things.
If you’re not feeling uncomfortable, then you’re doing it wrong. Every day should be a challenge, where you feel like you have no idea how to do what you need to do.
But with time, you will realize that you can do it and be proud of yourself. Then, you’ll be scared of the next day’s challenge, and the cycle continues. A few good ways to gain experience in software architecture and design include:
If you have the bandwidth, work on side projects. Even if they never make it into production or never become a thing, building something outside of your main job can help you explore technologies that you wouldn’t have the opportunity to work with otherwise. For instance, you could play with Rust if you’re into that.
Ask your manager to move you to different projects within your team. This will enable you to work on different parts of the system and expose you to different types of problems and solutions.
Participate in tech exchange programs. You’ll learn a lot from your peers, and it’s an excellent opportunity to share your knowledge and skills.
Write documentation about systems you don’t own but that your team uses. This will help you gain a deeper understanding of how the system works and how different components interact with one another.
Work on a lot of proofs-of-concept (POCs). This will allow you to try out different approaches and experiment with new technologies and methodologies.
Try to solve problems that don’t need solving, just to learn a new thing. For example, you could explore how to re-write an application using NoSQL DB instead of a relational one, even if it’s not necessary. This will help you learn new things and expand your skill set.
Contribute to Open Source!
By embracing these experiences, you’ll be able to learn new things, expand your skill set, and build the confidence to take on more significant challenges.
Lowering the problem level
Finally, let’s discuss the “shortcut” for tackling complex problems and concepts. By breaking them down into smaller, more manageable concepts, you can better understand and build upon them. For example:
Let’s say you are feeling lost in a project that requires you to use Kafka but have no idea what Kafka is or what it’s for. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Kafka is a distributed system consisting of servers and clients communicating through a high-performance TCP network protocol.
But if that sounds too technical, let’s simplify it further: think of Kafka as a topic that functions like a queue, with multiple consumers. Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.
Further simplifying: Kafka is essentially a database full of records called messages that you can consume in order. With this understanding, you can now start building on top of it. For instance, knowing that Kafka is a database, you can begin exploring key concepts that databases have and use that to further your understanding of Kafka. Don’t be intimidated by Kafka or any other technology.
Break it down into smaller, more understandable pieces, and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a master.
Keep learning, keep growing, keep updated
Becoming a senior engineer is an outstanding achievement that you should be proud of. However, it’s not the end of the road. The journey continues, and there’s always more to learn and explore. As a senior engineer, you should focus on developing both technical depth and breadth to stay adaptable and versatile.
Additionally, understanding that software design and architecture go hand in hand is crucial for staying competitive in your career. To achieve this, you can rely on books and other sources to continue learning and deepening your understanding of these complex topics. Remember, staying up-to-date with the latest tools, techniques, and approaches is essential to remain competitive in your career.
If you’re seeking more personalized guidance or mentoring, I’m here to help. You can easily book a time with me here or through the menu on the left — let’s tackle your challenges together!
