Had the pleasure of having lunch with a highly skilled Solutions Architect

Won't bore you with too many details.

Has been an architect for 20 years
Started with Unix/IBM then transitioned to MS and AWS
Disclosed his pay last year, ~500,000
Travels every 6 - 12 weeks to another state unless he gets lucky
Brings his wife with him everywhere, no kids
I asked about certifications to relay back here. He kept focusing on TOGAF. he said there are certain companies who won't consider you if you don't have the knowledge of the framework and certification. I was under the impression this was only for real principal SA's.
Pushed for other certs, didn't really go into detail, mentioned AWS and Azure high level.
VERY knowledge in almost all domains
No security certs (I looked at his LinkedIn) but had a lot of knowledge

My take away was this guy has literally committed his whole life to this industry. And he is reaping a half million dollars a year salary now.

Pretty cool stuff, he will be leaving us in a few weeks. I may try to have lunch with him one more time.

Just wanted to pass this along, he is about as experience as you can get.

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NetworkNewb

DatabaseHead wrote: »

committed his whole life to this industry

I'll pass

It would be a little depressing if he didn't get a paid a ton. I'd guess he is doing what he loves though.

powerfool

Very cool to get these insights. It would awesome to have an AMA with him on here. I think the most high level things that you could have asked that aren't here right now does he work for an employer, roughly the portions that are salary vs. bonus, is he independent, was there a staggering increase in his income at some specific point (and what big factors were there, like was it with his transition to cloud or a year or two after).

beads

TOGAF is popular with the Big 3 automakers and other large manufacturers. When I brought TOGAF up here at this client I might as well had explained myself in fluent Klingon and left the room for all the good it would do.

We have to assume, if nothing else, that everything will eventually be at least partially cloud based relying less and less on physical infrastructure and storage. Its just cheaper to outsource than to maintain in house. So, certs like AWS and CCSP will go mainstream within the next couple of years. Even server 2016 is rapidly headed to more of a cloud based feel.

Problem with cloud is that while works from an efficiency standpoint also bottlenecks my ability to train people from a more hands on approach and may hurt us in the very long run because of it. Then again, occasionally I am wrong about these thing but overall my track record is well over 85 percent from a career standpoint. We'll see but this is not the best place to make predictions as well.

Glad it was a productive discussion. For the most part I have to agree.

- b/eads

DatabaseHead

Follow up - Had lunch again today lol

First of all next Friday will be his last day, he will moving on to a 6 month project in Seattle. (I miss understood last time) I think he normally does 6 - 12 week projects but this one will be a little longer. Did say he was on a 3 year project once.

He had previously held a pre sales role with Oracle for ~3 years and now he works for another large tech company, I don't want to disclose, but the are top 10 in the US easy.

He has a fixed bonus with a very hefty base. Not sure of the breakdown

The guy is amazing, he knows so much about all the companies data architect, cloud, security, everything. It's really quite amusing, I literally felt like a child, in respects to the conversation.

Our senior developer went with us today, who I consider EXTREMELY intelligent and the principal controlled, period. Not even close.......

Worked with mainframe environment, hierarcy, relational, the new Mongo and Hadoop environments, even data layer that are concept.

Mentioned classic IT is going away, mentioned 3 large spaces. Not in this order, Big Data, Security and Cloud. Everything will live in one of these domains.

Tons of charisma, you just want to be around this person. This is a natural attribute that must help him tremedously. Not your classic geek, very polished. Very rich...

He and the developer are friends from previous life, small world I suppose. Thought that was cool.

Offered to send me 1,000 dollars worth of TOGAF material if I was interested, even said he would check around for a voucher. From my understanding these are worth 750 or something around there. Pretty cool. Must be nice to be in a situation like that!

Was very inspiring for my career goals, data / bi architect. Said the TOGAF would most certainly help in regards to that role. (Sorry to come off like a TOGAF honk lol).

Hope I didn't bore just wanted to provide in hopes of helping out someone.

Remedymp

Great thread.

Are you going to go for Togaf?

Fulcrum45

What would be his definition of "classic IT"? I would be curious to know. Does he think the traditional company admin role will go away or is he talking at a super high level? Always very cool to meet someone like that even if I would have very little interest in following in their footsteps.

DatabaseHead

Fulcrum45 wrote: »

What would be his definition of "classic IT"? I would be curious to know. Does he think the traditional company admin role will go away or is he talking at a super high level? Always very cool to meet someone like that even if I would have very little interest in following in their footsteps.

@ Rem I'm going to pass on the TOGAF, I'm done with certifications for now. @Fulcrum localized admins for small / mid sized companies are going the way of tv repair men.

Remedymp

DatabaseHead wrote: »

@ Rem I'm going to pass on the TOGAF, I'm done with certifications for now. @Fulcrum localized admins for small / mid sized companies are going the way of tv repair men.

This is true. Serverless computing and Cloud operations are here already. Our headquarters has zero servers and only a few switches and a Gateway appliance back to the carrier. Every service is in the cloud and all devices are portable.

DatabaseHead

Remedy from my vantage point. Developers, Power Users, Analyst etc. are taking over the admin functions, such as building accounts, managing emails whatever. On the Azure platform you press a button and a server is built. You can put SQL server on it or IIS, visual studio whatever.... It's simple now.

I don't want to come off doom and gloom but those types are roles are going to be minimized.

darkerz

I mean, let's not kid around. It is doom and gloom.

The need for Server, Wireless, Network, Systems, etc. Engineers is not going to be there. There is no end state where this is the case within 1-2 generations, and it's a good thing.

I'd argue for any new company or business unit, you can deploy a global cloud environment for your apps with as little as 2 DevOps + Cloud dudes.

Let's look back on this comment in 5 years and compare. "Classic IT" is going to look a lot like the Auto Manufacturers decay and crises from the 70-90's, where outsourcing + automation will be awesome to watch.

They'll write books about " Can you believe we paid people a salary to MANUALLY configure information systems in 2017? What savages " - Person in 2030's.

jelevated

IMO everyone even base level IT will have to be proficient in scripting and atleast somewhat knowledgable in compiled languages.

I mean kids are learning to code in GRADE school these days so, that won't be too far off.

slinuxuzer

@databasehead can you give a little more context of what this guy's title and job functions are? I am a chief architect for a large FSI and manage a team of principals, so I am curious if he does more of business development / proposal response or if he leads actual live projects. My company applies the term "solutions architect" to both business development roles and actual technical solutions architect roles. My team focuses on technical, but I get involved in business development as a SME for new business proposals sometimes.

With that said I do know of people that act as Senior Principal's in new business at my company that make ~250k, an executive search firm actually cold called me last year for a business development role at EMC, but they quickly lost interest after they realized I had limited BD experience, the role was 200 base and 50K bonus, the only reason I mention these two points is to say, yes there are some very well paying roles out there in architecture.

Remedymp

DatabaseHead wrote: »

Remedy from my vantage point. Developers, Power Users, Analyst etc. are taking over the admin functions, such as building accounts, managing emails whatever. On the Azure platform you press a button and a server is built. You can put SQL server on it or IIS, visual studio whatever.... It's simple now.

I don't want to come off doom and gloom but those types are roles are going to be minimized.

Right, and Google Enterprise and MS's offering takes the guess work out of Messaging and Server administration. Even our Network engineer is on an on call basis.

We're switching from Macbooks to Chromebooks because there is absolutely nothing on the Mac that we use that can't be utilized in the Cloud.

Deus Ex Machina

"$500,000" Holy ****!

JockVSJock

Thanks for posting this. I too enjoy picking someone's brain who is senior and is willing to share and not be cocky and condensending. Not to often this happens anymore.

I believe his predictions are true, however there will be probably be some classic IT left lying around. There won't be much. Look at the mainframe. It was supposed to be done, and its still around, not just as much of it as it used to be.

DatabaseHead wrote: »

Mentioned classic IT is going away, mentioned 3 large spaces. Not in this order, Big Data, Security and Cloud. Everything will live in one of these domains

Remedymp

JockVSJock wrote: »

Thanks for posting this. I too enjoy picking someone's brain who is senior and is willing to share and not be cocky and condensending. Not to often this happens anymore.

I believe his predictions are true, however there will be probably be some classic IT left lying around. There won't be much. Look at the mainframe. It was supposed to be done, and its still around, not just as much of it as it used to be.

The Mainframe is still around because of legacy applications. But, there are many companies that are slashing their IT departments as they either outsource the work or just not utilize the resource.

I know a desktop support tech who been doing it for 15 years, deep into his 40's. Never bothered learn linux or MS server, doesn't even want to comprehend security nor has the slightest clue about Data science. Just contempt with his desktop job.

The writing is on the wall, but he thinks it's arabic...

kalimuscle

This goes with anything in life

If you dedicate yourself to something you love and you live and breath it.

No matter what

It will pay you back big time

Awsome story !

Nice work for him and respect !

DatabaseHead

slinuxuzer wrote: »

@databasehead can you give a little more context of what this guy's title and job functions are? I am a chief architect for a large FSI and manage a team of principals, so I am curious if he does more of business development / proposal response or if he leads actual live projects. My company applies the term "solutions architect" to both business development roles and actual technical solutions architect roles. My team focuses on technical, but I get involved in business development as a SME for new business proposals sometimes.

With that said I do know of people that act as Senior Principal's in new business at my company that make ~250k, an executive search firm actually cold called me last year for a business development role at EMC, but they quickly lost interest after they realized I had limited BD experience, the role was 200 base and 50K bonus, the only reason I mention these two points is to say, yes there are some very well paying roles out there in architecture.

Sorry for the long delay, ugh tons of house work......

S: His role entailed diagramming our current systems and building use cases for us to review. He also was part of the RFP process when we bid the work. He was quasi sale as well, suggesting this, and alternatives for current state. Ended up saving us ~30,000 a month in reoccurring cost. We were able to immediately let go over our administrator, which saved us some money as well. Delivered a weekly project plan and status as the migration took place. Questioned our staging environment, made suggestion which effected overall total cost of the service. Made sure the cut over to the new cloud service was seamless. Shared lesson learned from previous engagements. E.G. Combined our app server and web server together on staging. (saved us the cost of one server there) along with some other consolidations.

To be honest, my experience with SA's have been extremely good. We were able to let go our admin and bring in another developer which has really taken a lot of pressure off of our team. Truth be told he had a lot of down time and never looked busy. Those optics didn't favor his cause. From a selfish standpoint we really need the dev over the admin....

I honestly don't know what DevOps is..... But I am assume that's kind of how we operate. We are all basically developers and a lot of our day to day and projects require software development. Whether we are building ETL's, or master view, updating our internal or external.net websites, creating new modules off of our website etc. I can't emphasis this enough, removing the admin for another senior developer has beeeeeeen amazing. Without this savings we would of never been able to bring in another full stack dev....

HUGE respect to all SA's who can help companies scale and enable to size correctly with the right resources.

I'd like to hear you thoughts.

Iristheangel

Guarantee you the Solutions Architect role is presales and he's probably a high earner. I know a few people working as solutions architects with AWS and there's usually a fat sign-on bonus and about $140-150K base + commission and bonuses. Most of the folks I know are making around $200-250K after bonuses. You can also check out the averages for the 30 or so people who reported their income to Glassdoor.com under the salary review.

Presales pays well but there will always be good and bad years. You're paid well for that uncertainty but you have to understand there will be years that suck. For example, you can make $500K one year if you're working with a lot of healthcare and then the next year it might go WAYYYYY down if political issues cloud what the healthcare industry is going to look like and they pinch their purses.

@Database - That work he was doing with the RFP process, the ROI, total cost of ownership, etc - all normal presales work. Just because you do technical stuff like diagramming, POCing, testing, etc, doesn't mean your role isn't pre-sales. It just means you're in technical presales.

DatabaseHead

Iristheangel wrote: »

Guarantee you the Solutions Architect role is presales and he's probably a high earner. I know a few people working as solutions architects with AWS and there's usually a fat sign-on bonus and about $140-150K base + commission and bonuses. Most of the folks I know are making around $200-250K after bonuses. You can also check out the averages for the 30 or so people who reported their income to Glassdoor.com under the salary review.

Presales pays well but there will always be good and bad years. You're paid well for that uncertainty but you have to understand there will be years that suck. For example, you can make $500K one year if you're working with a lot of healthcare and then the next year it might go WAYYYYY down if political issues cloud what the healthcare industry is going to look like and they pinch their purses.

@Database - That work he was doing with the RFP process, the ROI, total cost of ownership, etc - all normal presales work. Just because you do technical stuff like diagramming, POCing, testing, etc, doesn't mean your role isn't pre-sales. It just means you're in technical presales.

That is how his company branded him, SA. I don't disagree with you, I have a lot of friends who are in Pre sales most solution, answer RFP's provide some BD and present when needed. None of them are involved in delivery, he was. I thought that was an interesting dynamic, but each organization operates differently so.....

500,000 for a year is crazy money, more than most people make in IT. I have a feeling if you would of met him you wouldn't of been surprised.

I'd like to add one more thing. One of my friends is a Pre Sales Engineer for VMware and another for a energy company and neither get close to 300,000 even on a GREAT year with double bonus, which one has hit 3 years in a row.....

I'm not sure how he got to 500,000. I just gotta take him for his word.....

Remedymp

500,000 Canadian...

DatabaseHead

Remedymp wrote: »

500,000 Canadian...

That's gotta be it.

On a side note, there seems to be some competing ego's in this thread....

Folks! I was just relaying what I was told........ TE cracks me up!

Iristheangel

I'm sure his job title is "Solutions Architect." That title is a presales role at most vendors and VARS. Most have some pre-sales and post-sales work. Usually scoping out professional services, looking for upselling opportunities, etc. That's very much in line with a presales role.

As far as $200K-to-even-$1M years, yes, totally possible at a lot of vendors. Every org is different and even business units inside the same vendor might be different so presales doing basic VMware renewals might pay differently than an NSX specialist in Vmware.

LittleBIT

AWS has rekindled my love for IT. After doing SYS Admin grind for a while, deploying and upgrading infra, I got sick of being a password reset and printer problem tech at this new job. Looked into AWS and now Im not far from certifying after lab'ing like crazy. I love this $hit!!!

UnixGuy

DatabaseHead wrote: »

He had previously held a pre sales role with Oracle for ~3 years and now he works for another large tech company, I don't want to disclose, but the are top 10 in the US easy.
....

^^
That's how you gain similar experience.

Great thread OP

DatabaseHead

UnixGuy wrote: »

^^
That's how you gain similar experience.

Great thread OP

Thanks for the humble, honest feedback. I'll neve strive to go into that role, but data architecture maybe..... Heck I am a lead data analyst now and that wears me out....... I don't know if I have "it".

Ertaz

DatabaseHead wrote: »

Thanks for the humble, honest feedback. I'll neve strive to go into that role, but data architecture maybe..... Heck I am a lead data analyst now and that wears me out....... I don't know if I have "it".

Same. That "it" is more than just skill, it's dedication and time.

UnixGuy

There is no reason why you can't. Keep working and learning on the job. Change jobs every 3~ yrs or so, try and find some vendors or do some sort of pre-sales and/or get into design work. It should happen organically...eventually..

Remedymp

DatabaseHead: https://www.itnews.com.au/news/pwc-australias-move-to-cloud-only-it-456261

DatabaseHead

Remedymp wrote: »

DatabaseHead: https://www.itnews.com.au/news/pwc-australias-move-to-cloud-only-it-456261

Thanks for the this!

Great article.