Software Architect — resources
roadmap.sh: https://roadmap.sh/software-architect
Books
- Fundamentals of Software Architecture (Mark Richards & Neal Ford) — broad, modern intro to architecture characteristics, styles, and the architect’s soft skills; the best single starting point.
- Software Architecture: The Hard Parts (Neal Ford, Mark Richards, et al.) — decision-making frameworks for distributed systems: service granularity, data ownership, and trade-off analysis.
- Clean Architecture (Robert C. Martin) — component design, SOLID, and dependency rules for keeping systems maintainable over time.
- Designing Data-Intensive Applications (Martin Kleppmann) — deep coverage of data systems, replication, consistency, and distributed trade-offs every architect needs.
Courses / practice
- roadmap.sh/software-architect — the canonical interactive roadmap with per-node resources and progress tracking.
- System Design Primer — open-source guide and practice problems for system design and scaling.
- Azure Architecture Center — cloud design patterns, reference architectures, and best-practice guides applicable beyond Azure.