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I was connecting with an executive who wanted a certification program for lead developers to become architects. I wanted to understand the intent behind this and asked why are not they able to grow into their roles without a heavy weight training. His answer was, “If a nurse assists a surgeon in 100 surgeries, will the nurse be eligible to become a surgeon without being trained and certified as a surgeon?”.

It was a nice try, but in reality how many nurses have become a surgeon. All architects are developers, they always grow from being a developer into an architect. It is never a comparison. This also brings the question, is an architect a developer even if the architect does not write code? Yes; to start with, a solution with no custom code is the best code ever written. Having said that, code is the blueprint of an application and anyone impacting the blueprint is in an architect or a developer.

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Software industry is plagued with under training of developers with architecting skills especially softer skills like communication, time management, negotiation etc. Instead almost all focus is given to develop their coding skills to act as a replaceable coding unit who will unquestioningly pick up a task assigned and take it to completion irrespective of what the impact it will create. This defocus removes the developers from being aware of the domain, work with business/product to suggest alternatives.

Whenever I onboard trainees or juniors into my teams, I spend the extra effort to push them to see themselves as an architect. It looks like a formidable uphill task for them, most of them are quick to adapt, catapult their career and have a fulfilling experience. I too benefitted from this attitude by my lead very early in my days. I was told to ask for measurable business results on whatever task I was about to pick as a developer, that one question acted as a guiding light.

Every developer is an architect, every architect is a developer. It is just the experience that varies, it is not akin to nurses becoming doctors when they gain experience.

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I come across people in the spectrum of extremely laid back to extremely driven. Laid back ones or happy me go lucky ones have a strong belief in destiny and are often victim of systems. The driving factor for them is that there is very little one can influence on what is about to happen to them. On the other hand, people with an extreme drive try to keep altering every aspect of what they do to control their destiny leading to a high anxiety state. You can read more in detail about it here on what is locus of control.

What is the healthy state to be in? It is not the middle path, it is towards the internal sense of control that is desired but not on the extreme end. Kids in the initial days have an external sense of control, the sense of control gets more and more internalised as their learning horizon expands and they begin to understand cause and effect very well. This is not a inborn trait, our environment around us and self reflections will shape our sense of control.

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Environment shapes how an individual’s locus of control is established. A workplace that is toxic, promotes favouritism, has tight command and control will eventually prime the individuals to adopt an external locus of control. They become less engaged, more laid back and often make poor choices which slowly bleeds into their personal life as well.

It is crucial that a workplace promotes psychological safety if they need individuals to develop a healthy locus of control. Individuals should also understand that complete control is impossible and should develop the mindset to accept things that cannot be controlled, which will result is less anxiety and move on to next set of challenges.