The Senior Technical Architect is an expert in their field, tasked with the design, creation, and installment of IT systems. They also act as mentors and guides to team members and other technical architects.
They are also meant to overview and modify the work of others, organize and run workshops, create their own designs, work on large projects, which in and on itself requires them to cooperate with IT managers, software developers, and fellow experts in order to understand the span of the project and what it needs to deliver on and what issues it needs to fix. The Architect also needs to deal with the troubleshooting and other problems, as they come up, and stay in touch with clients and companies for whom the work is already done to ensure that no other issues have come up since completion.
A good Senior Technical Architect generally has a Bachelor's, or even a Master's, in IT or Computer Science, or a similar subject, years of previous experience, and in-depth knowledge and expertise on computer networks, hardware, and IT systems. They will also have proficiency in one or more programming languages and operating systems.
Senior Technical Architect Overview
Senior Technical Architect Careers
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a senior technical architect. For example, did you know that they make an average of $54.63 an hour? That's $113,629 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 8% and produce 11,200 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Senior Technical Architect Do
There are certain skills that many senior technical architects have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed organizational skills, technical skills and visualization skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a senior technical architect, we found that a lot of resumes listed 8.3% of senior technical architects included cloud, while 7.9% of resumes included business process, and 7.0% of resumes included java. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the senior technical architect job title. But what industry to start with? Most senior technical architects actually find jobs in the technology and finance industries.
How To Become a Senior Technical Architect
If you're interested in becoming a senior technical architect, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 48.0% of senior technical architects have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 39.8% of senior technical architects have master's degrees. Even though most senior technical architects have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a senior technical architect. When we researched the most common majors for a senior technical architect, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on senior technical architect resumes include doctoral degree degrees or associate degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a senior technical architect. In fact, many senior technical architect jobs require experience in a role such as senior software engineer. Meanwhile, many senior technical architects also have previous career experience in roles such as technology architect or software engineer.
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Senior Technical Architect Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a senior technical architect can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as senior architect, progress to a title such as project manager and then eventually end up with the title executive director, information technology.
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Average Salary for a Senior Technical Architect
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
Randstad SR Technical Architect SR Technical Architect | Randstad Randstad | 12/28/2020 12/28/2020 | $104,35012/28/2020 $104,350 |
Town of Barnstable Senior Architect/Designer, DPW Administration and Technical Support *ZR Senior Architect/Designer, DPW Administration and Technical Support *ZR | Town of Barnstable Town of Barnstable | 11/07/2020 11/07/2020 | $85,94511/07/2020 $85,945 |
Management Decisions, Inc. Senior Technical Architect/.NET/Azure Senior Technical Architect/.NET/Azure | Management Decisions, Inc. Management Decisions, Inc. | 08/20/2020 08/20/2020 | $145,00008/20/2020 $145,000 |
Technology Partners Senior Technical Architect, Integrations Senior Technical Architect, Integrations | Technology Partners Technology Partners | 06/24/2020 06/24/2020 | $250,00006/24/2020 $250,000 |
Ameren Senior Technical Architect Senior Technical Architect | Ameren Ameren | 01/30/2020 01/30/2020 | $250,00001/30/2020 $250,000 |
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Top Colleges for Senior Technical Architects
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA • Private
2. Stanford University
Stanford, CA • Private
3. Harvard University
Cambridge, MA • Private
4. Duke University
Durham, NC • Private
5. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
6. Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA • Public
7. Cornell University
Ithaca, NY • Private
8. Georgetown University
Washington, DC • Private
9. Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH • Private
10. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
Top Skills For a Senior Technical Architect
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 8.3% of senior technical architects listed cloud on their resume, but soft skills such as organizational skills and technical skills are important as well.
- Cloud, 8.3%
- Business Process, 7.9%
- Java, 7.0%
- Python, 4.2%
- Infrastructure, 4.1%
- Other Skills, 68.5% See All Senior Technical Architect Skills
Best States For a Senior Technical Architect
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a senior technical architect. The best states for people in this position are New Hampshire, California, Alaska, and West Virginia. Senior technical architects make the most in New Hampshire with an average salary of $138,109. Whereas in California and Alaska, they would average $137,539 and $130,805, respectively. While senior technical architects would only make an average of $130,069 in West Virginia, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. North Dakota
$124,484
Avg. Salary
2. District of Columbia
$137,447
Avg. Salary
3. Alaska
$130,805
Avg. Salary
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