How to hire a software architect who can actually build software

We need to talk about resumes

Have you noticed that titles on software development resumes have massively inflated in recent years? DataPeople found a 100% increase in “Lead” or “Principal” titles between 2019 and 2021. A 25% jump in “Senior.”

Hunter Walk, partner at Homebrew VC, puts it well: “Everyone seems to have been ‘Head of Something.’ You really need to dig into what this means on their resume.” The typical resume keyword search might be impressed by these terms, but they’ve lost value when looking for a software architect.

And what about Big Tech experience? Often misleading. An ex-Facebook engineer confided on Interviewing.io: “I worked at Facebook for five and a half years. I learned more about system design from reading the internal interviewing wiki than I ever got from working at Facebook.” At least he’s honest.

TestGorilla’s 2025 research found that 71% of employers agree that skills testing predicts job success better than resumes. 

So, stop putting so much emphasis on resumes. The better plan is to:

1. Define the type of software architect you need

2. Consider the skills that actually matter to you

3. Lead with skill assessments to get objective, unbiased scoring

4. Use scenario-based interviews to understand behavior

5. Combine scoring and decide

Step 1 - Define the type of software architect you need

Many hiring teams treat “software architect” as a single role. It isn’t. Putting “the wrong type of architect in the wrong role will generally be disastrous” because the skills “are not transferable,” warns Jim Walsh, former CTO for GlobalLogic.

Instead, you need to pinpoint the type of architect that’s going to be the right fit. You’ve got some choices.

The startup architect

At a growth-stage startup, the startup architect’s job is hands-on. They write code maybe 30-50% of the time. Not features, but the “glue” that holds the system together. Shared libraries. Core infrastructure. Hard refactors that junior engineers can’t tackle.

They make quick decisions with incomplete information. They’re comfortable saying “good enough for now” instead of over-engineering for a hypothetical future that might never happen.

In this case, hiring someone from Big Tech who’s used to unlimited resources isn’t always a good fit. They often prioritize theoretical “best practices” over the raw speed your company needs to survive another quarter.

The enterprise architect

At a Fortune 500, the job is different. The software architect does much less coding (0-10%) and much more governance. It’s politics, legacy systems, and 5–10 year planning horizons.

They spend their time fixing how departments talk to each other. They know that if two teams are disconnected, the software they build won’t work together. Their real challenge for bigger companies is getting hundreds of people to agree on the same set of rules so the whole massive system stays compatible.

Know which you need

So, before writing your software architect job description, first answer:

• How much coding should this person do?

• Will they make fast decisions alone, or build consensus through committees?

• Will they build Greenfield systems from scratch or integrate legacy systems with a lot of technical debt?

This will inform the mix of business knowledge, technical know-how, and soft skills you’ll look for. If your job post just says “Software Architect – 10+ years experience,” you may attract all manner of software architects, but you’ll waste a lot of time figuring out who fits.

Step 2 - Consider the skills that actually matter to you

A software architect’s skillset is significantly different from that of a typical software engineer working on the front lines. So, to ensure the “right” hire for you, you’ll want to consider the following:

Communication

We asked Richard Demeny, founder and CTO at Canary Wharfian, what separates architects from senior engineers. “Communication skills and foreseeing long-lasting implications, hands down,” he said. “Being able to articulate ideas clearly is just as important as raw engineering skill. In this industry, where technical skills are a given, it’s the soft skills that make the difference.”

Oleg Danyliuk, Duanex’s founder and CTO, echoes this sentiment: “As well as being an architect, he should be a strong team player, [a software architect] has to talk with the tech team, with the business, and be able explain his decision to people and get their support.”

Systems and architectural thinking

Software architects need to consider the big picture at all times. 

“A strong software architect is someone who sees the forest while knowing the health of each tree,” explains Barry Kunst, VP at Solix Technologies. While a good engineer can perfect a single software module, an architect must understand how “that module fits into the broader ecosystem without creating future debt.”

Good architects also anticipate potential failures and plan accordingly. “The best architects see much further ahead in terms of the impact of technical choices and trade-offs,” says Demeny. They focus on what’s achievable within time and resource constraints, rather than pursuing design elegance alone. Architecture isn’t just about creating new systems – it’s also about maintaining and evolving what already exists.  

Business acumen and understanding the “why”

An architect’s job is to translate business goals into technical constraints. If they can’t explain how a specific database choice helps the company reach its Q3 goals, they aren’t architecting; they’re just playing with tech.

Danyliuk emphasizes this point: “When a senior gets the task, he asks 'What is the best technical solution?' At the same time, architects ask, ‘Why are we solving this? What happens if we dont?’”

Look for candidates who ask about the business model. Do they care about “Time to Market” more than “99.999% availability”? A great architect knows when to choose a “quick and dirty” solution because the business needs to get in the game.

Trade-off thinking

Real architecture is trade-offs. The best architects design appropriate systems for the constraints – not “perfect” systems.

Kunst explains: “Architects constantly juggle trade-offs: cost, performance, compliance, and future extensibility. During interviews, I look for candidates who can articulate why they chose one approach over another – not just how they built it.”

To evaluate these skills in candidates, we recommend flipping the workflow and testing skills before reviewing resumes.

Step 3 - Lead with skill assessments to get objective, unbiased scoring

This approach filters out those who can just talk the talk and instead surfaces hidden talent. Someone with an unusual background but strong thinking gets a fair shot. Someone with an impressive resume but shallow skills gets caught.

TestGorilla makes this practical. You can easily combine a Software Architect test with cognitive ability tests and technical assessments to build a full picture.

Our research shows 91% of employers who use multi-measure testing report quality hires.

TestGorilla has a wealth of technical tests you can employ, but as Demeny pointed out earlier, you should also consider evaluating soft or hybrid skills like:

• Communication

• Leadership and People Management 

• Project Management

• Digital Agility

TestGorilla also has tests for core architecture and design, infrastructure, security, compliance, networking, and database administration.

Step 4 - Use scenario-based interviews to understand behavior

Assessments are excellent for testing baseline knowledge, problem-solving, and personality. But interviews round things out by allowing you to see:

• Contextual judgment (how they’d handle your particular constraints)

• Communication depth (explaining complex ideas live)

• Scenario thinking (how they’d respond to a real incident)

We recommend using both. Assessments to narrow. Interviews to go deep. You can even use AI video interviews for the first round, then conduct scenario-based interviews with the best candidates.

Although interviews help you hone in on the right candidate, you need people in the room who know their stuff. According to Demeny, “Not having a senior SWE in the interview, someone who knows the systems,” is where traditional processes fail. “And not asking about actual, real-world scenarios that actually have happened and how they would solve them” could be a problem.

Example scenarios to interview with

What signals real architectural thinking in interviews? “Asking the right questions, to the right depth. Paying attention to detail. Caring about the business side,” says Demeny. “Understanding that tech is a support function of a business, and dollars and cents are really what matter.”

The exact nature of your interview questions should reflect the position, but you can evaluate your candidates' behavioral and business thinking by putting them in hypothetical real-world scenarios. For instance:

“We have a monolithic app that’s CPU-bound on image processing. We need 10x traffic in three months. Walk me through your thinking.”

• Talker: Proposes a full microservices rewrite immediately.

• Doer: Asks clarifying questions, suggests vertical scaling first, and extracts only the bottleneck into a separate service.

“Your system is down. Database locked. Read-replicas lagging 10 minutes. What’s your triage plan?”

• Talker: Discusses what went wrong and how to prevent this next time.

• Doer: Focuses on immediate recovery – stop the bleeding, communicate with leadership, then fix the root cause.

“Tell me about a time you disagreed with a CTO about technical direction. Did you win or lose? If you lost, how did you handle the implementation?”

• Red flag: “I’ve found I typically win because I’m usually right.”

• Green flag: “I expressed my thoughts on the risks in writing, but once the decision was made, I focused on mitigating those risks.”

Once you’ve evaluated and interviewed all the top candidates, it’s time to choose.

Step 5 - Combine scoring and decide

One of the hardest parts of the final decision is evaluating qualitative data, such as open-ended interview answers or video responses. 

TestGorilla uses AI auto-scoring for essays and video interviews, which ensures these critical skills are measured against a consistent, objective baseline rather than an interviewer’s shifting mood, fatigue, or unconscious bias.

Danyliuk offers additional advice for the final assessment: “Companies often ask for a recommendation. I would recommend asking for 2 recommendations from the same company: someone from the tech team and someone from the business.” Why? “I’ve seen cases when the architect was doing a job that the CEO liked, but the tech team hated. And [the] opposite – [where a] technically great solution wasn't solving business problems.”

Hire architects who build

Get this hire right, and you’ve got someone who massively multiplies your team’s output. Get it wrong, and you’re looking at wasted salary, a mountain of technical debt, and an underutilized engineering team.

The traditional resume-and-interview process isn’t built to tell you whether a candidate is the right architect for your project. It rewards polish over substance, and fast-tracks Talkers over Doers.

TestGorilla’s Software Architect test helps you evaluate real architectural thinking. Combine it with tests for technical skills, cognitive ability, and personality, as well as scenario-based interviews to compare candidates fairly and make decisions based on evidence, not hunches.

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FAQs

What does a software architect do?

They design the technical structure of systems, choose platforms and tools, set standards, and guide dev teams. TestGorilla’s Software Architect test helps you evaluate these skills.

How much do software architects earn?

US software architects typically make $190,000–$300,000, depending on level. Principal architects can exceed $300,000 in total compensation.

Will AI replace software architects?

No. AI helps with code, but architectural decisions need judgment and communication that AI can’t do. Strong architects use AI as a tool. TestGorilla can help you find AI-adept talent.

Contributors

• Richard Demeny, Canary Wharfian, Founder/CTO

• Oleg Danyliuk, Duanex, Founder & CEO

• Barry Kunst, Solix Technologies, VP

• Hunter Walk, Homebrew VC, Partner

• Dr. Jim Walsh, GlobalLogic, CTO