The Architect

A Cause For Breadth

Definitions

The Role As It Is Defined In Software Today

On Techopedia:

“A software architect is a developer who is responsible for the high-level design and strategic planning of new software products. This can include hardware planning as well as the design methodology of the code.”

On Wikipedia:

“A software architect is a software engineer responsible for high-level design choices related to overall system structure and behavior”

The Role As It Is Defined “Offline” (Brick & Mortar)

On Wikipedia.org:

“An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings.[1] To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that have human occupancy or use as their principal purpose.”

There need be no similarities in definition or in practice between these two within these two vastly different industries, but one sees curious similarities at a very high-level, and because analogs are often so useful in understanding our world we seek to use brick-and-mortar as our analog here.

The impulse to do so is born from needs accumulated across multiple organizations over the years, revealing opportunities for improvement upon the definition and execution of the role within the software community, all done simply by taking some clues from historical definitions.

As water is analog to electricity, so too can be earth and its structures an analog to computing technology. The buildings of apps built upon the firmament of electricity.

Why Definitions Matter

Well, they matter a whole lot in software. But I’m not talking about definitions within the code itself. In our modern day, our personal identities themselves are torn and mired in brooding definitions awaiting (r)evolution. So there is great cause to take language seriously and its effects on our lives, and so too then we aim to take our roles seriously, if not a bit more literally.

Common implementation of the term and/or role Architect (in computing) nowadays refers to a blob of ever-changing nebulous tasks. But the fragmentation of roles, though not always a bad thing, can often lead to the weakening of the impact (and value) of the individual, which creates challenges for both the self and the org.

So we aim to zero-in on the definition of the “Architect” role, interpretations of the word “design” and how it comes to be practiced, the end result or product of architecture, the title’s debatable inclusion/exclusion of hardware, as well as the divergent use of human-centric language across these definitions.

It’s important to note that no definition is inscrutable, or rule of law. We interpret definitions, and they evolve with us. And in practice, day by day, they are debated, often with bias. Definitions seek to establish clarity and distinction, especially when none are present, or when their presence is felt too greatly. They are boundaries around ideas which often overlap with similar but different definitions. They increase alignment and order, which is often quite desirable in our work.

Ultimately, this all came about because I just take my job seriously.

What We Aim To Do

This effort exists for both the individual but for the whole of the group, and for several reasons. The re-defining of the role seeks to be a form of empowerment, an enriching, ideally resulting in ever-better product PoCs and more valuable team members.

The first of our motivations to broaden the definition of this role is clearly & simply the comparison to (and presumably the inheritance of) the title from the real-world age-old historic title; this is a prestigious role with societies and myths surrounding it. The practice of which in today’s world requires degrees and the swearing of an oath, presumably in-part at least because of the role’s implicit responsibility to adhere to the fundamental physical laws & properties we are constrained within, but also to protect life within its structures. We see more and more each day, the Software or Hardware Architect faces similar responsibilities and challenges today; protecting life within our technology products becomes increasingly harder with each cycle. We might as well sign an oath too. This is also due to the inherently broader nature of the earliest “online” roles matching the job description, previously known as “webmaster” (circa 1998-2009) as defined by Wikipedia or more colloquially by Justin Jackson, a term no longer in-use or perhaps entirely out-of-vogue. There is also an inherently open & accessible nature to both software design & development; without leaving one’s own seat, one can see-through the entire process of software creation, from vision to publication, soup to nuts. In a more “heady” sense, some job functions should require (or rather, are greatly enhanced by) the use of both hemispheres of the brain, as described on PsychologyToday in a survey of the popular book “Drawing On The Right Side of The Brain”. Another reason being the efficiency provided to a team when an Architect creates a design prototype and a PoC with code.

Note: It’s worth mentioning that not every known definition of the term “webmaster” or “architect” acknowledges a responsibility or requirement of the understanding or aptitude of design or design-thinking, but the vast majority do.

Enhancements (Nudging) On Scope Of Definition

  • Common definitions include design, but often fall short in practice.
  • Comparison to the broader scope of the real-world and age-old “architect” title.
  • Historical beginnings of early “webmasters” embracing a wider range of responsibilities.
  • The open & accessible nature of modern design and development tools and skills.
  • Efficiency benefits of multi-hat operation, especially throughout prototyping and Proofs of Concept (PoCs).
  • Missed opportunities for integrating bleeding-edge tooling-awareness directly into the design phase.

Conclusion

By taking a cue from the historical and broader definition of an architect, especially in the brick-and-mortar world, we can enrich and empower the software architect role. This expanded perspective fosters a deeper sense of responsibility, encourages a more holistic approach to design and development, and ultimately leads to more robust, valuable products and more impactful team members. It’s about recognizing that the “cause for breadth” in our definitions directly correlates to the depth of our impact in the ever-evolving landscape of technology.

Material Instincts Announces the Global Launch of All Rise!, the Game of Real-Life Courtroom Drama

All Rise! App screenshots and store links

Brooklyn, NY, December 20th, 2023

Can you handle the truth?! Material Instincts is thrilled to announce the worldwide launch of “All Rise!” — a new mobile game for iOS & Android. Challenge your idea of justice. Take a stand, and guess how courts ruled on intriguing, real-life, legal scenarios.

“All Rise!” presents a platform for sparking dialogue and deliberation on hot-button issues.  Transform your parties into lively arenas of debate and discussion. Or, ditch the doom-scrolling and play solo.

“All Rise!” offers a plethora of features, both free and premium. This app boasts case summaries, courtroom sketches, audio narrations, music, sound effects, score-keeping, an optional timer, and fun avatars. If you are highly judicious, you may rise up into our leaderboard.  

For those who want to delve deeper into the world of legal precedence, “All Rise!” offers a Gold membership. Gold members play ad-free, while gaining unlimited access to our growing library of 600+ cases, the “Case of the Week”, custom avatars, and the ability to choose specific subject matter.

Court is now in session. The game is currently available on iOS (≥12.3) and Android (≥13) platforms worldwide. “All Rise!” is not just a game, but a movement towards a more informed and engaged society.

We’ll see you in court!

https://allrise.app

Press Contact:
Material Instinct
[email protected]
+1 (917) 300-8103

Enchanted

Enchanted Diamonds Ring Builder by Material Instinct

Enchanted Diamonds was a NY company specializing in diamond and rare gem retail and wholesale, they were also designers and producers of fine jewelry like engagement and wedding rings, necklaces and pendants, cufflinks, bracelets, among other items.

In September 2018 we were approached to immediately solve several large problems the company was facing with their technology, in addition to redesigning and rebuilding their primary eCommerce platform, and refresh the brand identity. Enchanted was run by Joshua Niamehr, a 4th-generation diamond dealer conducting business in the heart of the NYC diamond district. All sales were transacted on an 8 year old monolithic Ruby on Rails app running on outdated, unmanaged commodity linux hardware hosted on Rackspace. Failures and outages were frequent, daily even.

The first phase of the project was to focus on fixing critical runtime errors, server performance limitations, and failing critical web-scraper cron jobs. We rewrote their cron jobs to run exclusively on AWS Lambda server-less cloud functions for the primary logic, using DynamoDB as ephemeral storage, and CloudWatch as event triggers to fire off each stage in a sequence of functions. We also migrated the 35 GB Postgres DB with millions of records (market data, price changes, user events) and their primary custom Ruby on Rails eCommerce app onto auto-scaling Heroku infrastructure and added comprehensive exception handling & notifications.

Phase 2 was focused on designing & building the user experience for a new modern eCommerce front-end architecture written in JavaScript & ReactJS exchanging data with Postgres through a web-socket hooked up to a lite-weight re-written Ruby on Rails API. We also began development on a totally custom wedding & engagement ring configurator allowing the customer to design & preview 3D models of their desired jewelry written in WebGL, React, and Redux.

In an unlikely and unforeseen turn of events, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2019, curtailing further development on the aforementioned initiatives.

Baby Phat

BabyPhat - Kimmora Lee Simmons

Remember that juicy urban chic brand BabyPhat from the 90’s? Well they’ve relaunched. Kimora Lee Simmons is back in control of the company, and in partnership with the good people over at Galore Media approached us in early 2019 to design and build their brand new site for the relaunch.

After about 1.5 months of UX prototype design and branding exploration, we chose a path forward and began implementing the designs into a brand new site architecture: a custom Ruby on Rails API running atop Postgres, and a sexy server-side rendered frontend app written in NodeJS + React + Redux.

GetClark.io

Clark - Your Virtual Wishlist In Real Life

https://GetClark.io

RFID System Build & Custom Retail Apps

“New frontier in retail allows customers to shop their favorite online brands while still being able to experience them in person” – Cheddar TV

Aaron spent 2018 as CTO & lead developer building a new retail tech platform along with developers Noah Shpak, Anthony Grullon, and Nilson Ivano.

Clark bridges the gap between the online and offline worlds through an RFID/NFC/QR enabled mobile shopping cart for brick & mortar retail, as well as a realtime data dashboard for brands to gather insights into consumer behavior, product department or location performance, and overall sales.

The RFID hardware technology used was manufactured by Impinj, installed in a retailer at Water Tower Place in Chicago with on-site Linux hardware and RFID API setup by Aaron, and software developed by Aaron, Noah, and Anthony.

Brand Homepage (https://GetClark.io)
Shopping Cart / Wishlist (https://clrk.me)
Brand Dashboard (https://app.getclark.io)

Dirty Lemon

“We make better beverages, designed to improve your everyday routine. Exclusively via text.”
https://dirtylemon.com

Dirty Lemon is the first company to handle 100% of their sales via SMS (text-to-buy) conversations. The company commissioned an agency to build their public website, SMS chatbot, and admin dashboard all in Ruby on Rails.

We inherited this project with the app in rough shape. It’s a very large single codebase for all connected parts, there were many bugs, and it was still missing critical features.

Over 5 months we were able to fix mission-critical business-level bugs and add crucial new features like HTTPS/SSL, calculate taxes, intelligently distribute orders to multiple fulfillment centers using a time-in-transit API, validate user signup forms & addresses, hookup a CRM for lead generation/remarketing, track user events, enhance the clarity/personality/capabilities of their chatbot (using some NLP), create the ability for special products & promotions within their dashboard, setup better errors, enhance the design & UX, and more.

We were also the only technical staff working for Dirty Lemon during this time, so we also played the role of DevOps and managed all underlying infrastructure and services. The platform is built atop Heroku, PostgreSQL, Ruby on Rails, CoffeeScript, KnockoutJS, and Twilio.

You can read more about Dirty Lemon here on CNN.

Galore

Galore Mag - Material Instinct

We were responsible for the design, development, and management of all Galore’s digital products and websites.

Our team designed, developed, and still maintains several digital products and their underlying infrastructure, including Galore’s social-influencer agency & mgmt system [KittenAgency.com], our mobile-first original video browser/player web app [TV.GaloreMag.com], our online editorial publishing system [GaloreMag.com], and all Galore’s digital newsletter campaigns and some specialty micro-sites. At any given point we have 2-5 engineers switching between code, devops/sysadmin, design & UX, strategy, and content management.

The most common software stack used for Galore’s properties uses NodeJS, React, MongoDB, LESS, Docker, Github, and AWS.
Some of our web properties also use MeteorJS, WordPress/LAMP, Ghost.org, and even a custom NodeJS webapp using the WP-API. All of Galore’s software stacks are described in full detail on https://StackShare.io, and follows 12-step design patterns.

Galore has an audience of over 60MM followers across its networks, publishing hundreds of new written, video, and social content pieces each week.

During issue launches or large press events, our sites often garner major media attention and occasionally receive over 100,000 unique visitors to one of our properties in one day. There were around a dozen times where we had to defend Galore properties from DoS (denial of service) attacks and/or keep the site online during major press events which often cause infrastructure performance/availability issues.

There were often armies of foreign IP addresses requesting static resources thousands of times per second, freezing/locking our servers requiring our engineers to manually manage our IP tables and firewalls to blacklist the attackers’ range of IP addresses. We’ve also setup and managed auto-scaling groups of resources responding to usage limits and traffic volume.

Lucera Financial Infrastructures

In 2010, we were referred to Cantor Fitzgerald by a dear friend & colleague, Dr. Sasha Stoikov, to lead the design of a memorial site guidebook commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. The project was important due to the sensitive & gut-wrenching nature of the historical tragedy which occurred on September 11, 2001, but also because of the complex nature of the memorial name-plates of the 658 Cantor Fitzgerald employees in the context of the overall 2,977 victims. It was out of this 4 month long project from which the relationship with Cantor was born.

For the next 3 years, 2011-2014, Aaron helped form a Cantor spin-off entity, Lucera.com, providing a high-performance bare-metal on-demand computing platform & a distributed exchange software platform (LumeFX), to Wall Street’s most demanding & mission-critical clients. Aaron was brought on as the Director of Marketing, but quickly broadened scope to include frontend engineering. Aaron strategized & designed all marketing assets & software UX, and developed early versions of three customer-facing web apps, driving business growth in multiple international markets.

Please visit Lucera.com, a Cantor Fitzgerald company, for more information.