How To Become A Java Architect: What It Is and Career Path

What is a java architect and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted experts

Brian Glas,

Christian Hansen Ph.D.

Java architects are responsible for upgrading, defining, and integrating a complete architecture that will support applications that run using Java. They identify the necessary infrastructure for computer systems to be designed and integrated by coming up with requirements for information, determining the tools, technology, and architecture needed for the platform. They also help the company achieve long-term software goals by designing the architecture to support the Java environment.

Java architects earn an average salary of $100,000 annually or $48 per hour. Their duties include meeting with technology managers and the design team to discuss the goals and needs of the company. They examine and define current architecture systems, design scalable architecture systems for Java-based applications, and identify the hardware and software infrastructure needs to accommodate the company's architectural goals.

Java architects typically hold a bachelor's degree in software engineering, computer science, or other related fields. They are expected to have previous work experience as a software or Java Architect. Some employers prefer candidates with advanced knowledge of software architecture and proficiency with Java, Java Beans, Java Servlets, and JavaScript.

What general advice would you give to a java architect?

Brian Glas

Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Union University

Build relationships: Different technologies will interest and challenge you, but throughout your career, you'll find that it's the relationships that are the most important. This is harder to grasp earlier in your career, but much easier to understand after 15-20 years.
Gain different perspectives: Spend time with people in other roles that your job interacts with, and gain a solid understanding of how they view things; this is most valuable for career progression and understanding of how your work fits into the big picture.

ScoreJava ArchitectUS Average

Salary

8.0

Avg. Salary $114,683

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.2

Growth rate 13%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

1.9

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.42%

Asian 16.13%

Black or African American 6.49%

Hispanic or Latino 12.09%

Unknown 6.52%

White 58.35%

Gender

female 15.40%

male 84.60%

Age - 36

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 36

Stress level

5.2

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.3

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

5.8

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a java architect

Explore java architect education requirements

Most common java architect degrees

Bachelor's

57.3 %

Master's

38.2 %

Associate

1.3 %

Start to develop specific java architect skills

Skills	Percentages
Java	16.63%
Architecture	6.80%
Spring Boot	6.49%
API	4.34%
Maven	3.60%

Complete relevant java architect training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New java architects learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a java architect based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real java architect resumes.

Research java architect duties and responsibilities

Develop ant build scripts to automate and simplify some build process.
Lead POC effort to design an enterprise n-tier web-base application using MVC paradigm.
Used Jenkins for automate provisioning and configuration for deployment, jar creation, plugins, jobs, server configuration, etc.
Work extensively in dealing with cross browser issues using CSS, HTML and DOJO.

Get java architect experience

Generally, it takes 2-4 years to become a java architect. The most common roles before becoming a java architect include java developer, senior java developer team lead and senior software engineer.

Prepare your java architect resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your java architect resume.

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