What is the primary responsibility of a software architect?

The primary responsibility of a software architect is to dictate technical standards and design choices. This role involves making critical decisions regarding the architecture of software systems, which includes selecting appropriate technologies, establishing coding practices, and ensuring that the system design supports the required functionality and performance.

A software architect typically collaborates with stakeholders to understand their needs and translates those needs into a coherent technical strategy. This involves evaluating different architectural styles, design patterns, and frameworks to ensure the architecture aligns with business goals, scalability, security, and maintainability.

While implementing coding standards, managing project budgets, and writing user documentation are important tasks in software development, they are usually the responsibilities of other team members. For example, implementation of coding standards is often carried out by developers, project budgets are typically managed by project managers, and user documentation is produced by technical writers or as a part of the development process. In contrast, the software architect plays a strategic role in determining how the software will be built and how its components will interact, which is essential for the overall success of software projects.