Thanks, Eugene. And great question.

I would say that certainly trying to combine the roles is a mistake. Code deliverables are almost always going to take precedence over technical design in the real world, and making one person responsible for both means that technical design will almost always lose out, resulting in more and more technical debt that will almost never be cleaned up.

Regarding an individual working in an engineering context and also in a completely separate architecture context, e.g. in contractor roles for two different organizations, I'm not saying that a single person cannot do both or even that a single person cannot do both well.

What I said in the article is that I believe that this person, if s/he exists at all, would be extremely rare, i.e. a "unicorn".

The fields of engineering and architecture are of course adjacent and highly dependent on each other, but both these fields are vast. Mastering both seems ... unlikely.

On their worst days, the very best engineers I know can (and often do) make my relatively feeble attempts at engineering look ridiculous. Conversely, while they usually appreciate, contribute to, and even improve my technical designs, I've yet to meet one who can create and document such a design himself/herself, let alone successfully explain and promote it with an organization's business leadership.

My designs balance technology in the service of business, look further ahead, anticipate much more, and duplicate much less because of the way I look at the world, which is in the end what makes me an architect rather than an engineer. Part of this is a choice of course; I've chosen to focus on architecture. But that choice acknowledges who I am and how I approach ... well, everything.

Thanks again for reading. And asking questions. I appreciate it and the opportunity to respond very much.

I don't focus much on the front end, and I see that you do. I look forward to reading and learning from your Frontend Insider series!

All the best,

Doug