Are you a software linguist?

by Sharon Watson

April 17, 2001 —

It's tempting to compare a senior software architect to a building architect. After all, both are concerned with design and structure, though their final products are very different.

But Lou Coglianese, chief architect at enterprise architecture at Capital One Financial Corp. in Falls Church, Va., describes his role in terms that a linguist would appreciate.

"I appreciate the value of being able to express things in different ways," says Coglianese. Whether working with SQL, Java or a particular software architecture methodology, Coglianese says he sees each as a language with its own strengths in communicating different types of ideas.

That's not so surprising; although he studied math as an undergraduate and later earned a master's degree in chemical engineering, Coglianese majored in French language and literature. "I've always been a language person," he explains. "How I express myself is an important part of who I am."

Just the Facts

Name and job title: Lou Coglianese, chief architect, enterprise architecture

Company and location: Capital One, Falls Church, Va.

How he got the job: Coglianese worked at IBM for 20 years; he then did software architecture research and stints with consulting firms before Capital One lured him with its information-based business strategies. "IT is the central nervous system here," he says. "We use IT to rocket the business forward."

Skills required: Competence with architecture styles, patterns and their implications; an understanding of performance-based estimates and capacity planning; knowledge of the benefits of new technologies; a good working knowledge of many programming languages, servers, databases, networks and system operations. "You must understand how each aspect will work in the context of the entire system," Coglianese says.

Training needed: Coglianese says his training in math and chemical engineering has been useful, but he also credits exposure to a range of systems, from "classic IT operations" to sophisticated systems for aircraft operation, radar processing and marine automation. As he identifies skills he may need in emerging technologies, Coglianese expects to gain them via Capital One's IT University.

Job and salary potential: Coglianese declined to discuss salary specifics. However, he notes that Capital One offers many performance-based incentives on top of salary and benefits. "You are in a position to make an impact, to show a benefit to the business, so you can take advantage of the perks," Coglianese says. Recruiters estimate salaries for senior software architects range from $90,000 to $150,000.

Advice: Coglianese recommends that aspiring architects gain as many skills and as much knowledge as possible. "You have to be able to work at the top; you have to be able to work at the bottom," he says. Further, he urges architects to learn to express their architectures in formal designs so they're easy to analyze and evaluate.

Coglianese's combination of technical and linguistic skills has been invaluable in a variety of professional situations. These include ordering dinner in French in a restaurant in Italy for English-speaking colleagues and translating Capital One's business objectives into systems requirements. Those are the multilingual skills that more companies are looking for in their senior software architects.

Software Grammar

As chief software architect, Coglianese's work is akin to that of a linguist codifying the grammar for a newly discovered language. At Capital One, the language is a business need, and the grammar is the architectural model.

"An architecture starts with needs and a vision: What do we hope to achieve; what value do we need the system to bring us?" Coglianese says. Then it's a matter of selecting the right technologies. "It's not about putting the latest and greatest together but of looking at the business drivers and how they map to the components of the architecture," he says.

In addition to meeting immediate end-user needs, software architecture must also account for the way in which future changes and additions will be incorporated into its design and the way that the system will be produced, maintained and upgraded.

Summary

THEME: Job Watch

TOPIC: Senior software architect

KEY POINTS: Comprehensive knowledge of software architectural models, programming languages and systems are still prerequisites. However, what makes a senior architect distinct and more desirable in a corporate setting is the ability to create software architectures that go beyond technical elegance to help a company compete more effectively.

Creating such architectures requires deep technical knowledge. "You need a detailed understanding of how things work under the covers," says Coglianese. For example, to know how application servers will schedule work, a senior architect must understand scheduling algorithms, as well as software like Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), languages like Java and XML, and system components such as databases, networks and security.

Coglianese says his exposure to a wide range of complex systems during his 26-year career has been extremely valuable in acquiring such knowledge. Yet, he points out, even with his experience, he can't know everything about every system.

That's why he works with 14 other software architects, each of whom has complementary strengths. One may know database structures particularly well, while another may be strong on networking and a third may know security.

Coglianese's role is coordinating the skills of this group of architects as they collaborate with other players on a project, which may include professionals from Capital One's Internet group, operations department, call center group, and human resources and marketing departments.

Lou Coglianese, Capital One

A Wide Vocabulary

Current needs dictate that Coglianese and his team of architects be very close to the business users for whom they design systems. "I don't need to be a financial wizard, but I need to know the driving forces," he says.

With this knowledge, Coglianese and his architects generate their own ideas about systems that could help Capital One. "I like to see things get built, get into production, get delivered," he says.

Coglianese says that in the future, he expects to deliver systems providing personalized data to Capital One's 3 million customers. Component software like J2EE and languages like XML will offer a rich design base, he says.

"We'll be spending our time on the business value of a system, not on building infrastructures we've built a million times before," says Coglianese.

Computerworld