Common Architectural Mistakes to Avoid

1. The "Seagull Architect"

Seagull Architects are highly concept-oriented but disconnected from real-world issues and complexity. Their abstract ideas often fail to address the practical needs of the teams and systems they are meant to support.

I once worked as Junior Architect for a "Seagull Architect" who designed a very complex yet seemingly powerful system on paper to manage business traces asynchronously for a large-scale project. Its main purpose was to integrate traces more efficiently and faster. However, the reality was far different. It took more than one year to develop, and once implemented, it turned out to be slow, overly complex to maintain and deploy, and difficult to administer. Eventually, the system was dismantled but it was so complex that it took more time to drop it than to develop it.

2. The "Factory Worker Architect"

Some architects fall into the trap of behaving like factory workers, mechanically churning out designs, diagrams, or decisions without truly engaging with the bigger picture.

This mindset can lead to systems that look good on paper but fail to meet real-world needs or adapt to change.

In a large insurance company, I spent several years working as an infrastructure architect. During certain periods, I found myself involved in up to 15 projects simultaneously. Each project often required complex decisions, such as selecting between multiple IT products.

It quickly became clear that this level of dispersion made it impossible to deliver high-quality architectural solutions. Critical issues were overlooked, and the overall coherence and effectiveness of the architecture suffered as a result.

3. The "Golden Hammer Syndrome"

This is a classic pitfall where an architect relies excessively on a single tool, technology, or methodology, treating it as a one-size-fits-all solution. While the tool or approach may be effective in specific contexts, overusing it can lead to poorly designed systems that fail to meet diverse requirements.

This issue is often exacerbated by company fossilization—when architects stay in the same company for too long without exposure to external ideas or trends. Over time, they become overly comfortable with the tools and processes they know, reluctant to explore new possibilities. Additionally, many architects isolate themselves by avoiding meetups, conferences, or industry events, further narrowing their perspectives.

I once worked for a company where the infrastructure services team absolutely refused to use containers, even something as simple as Docker. Their reasoning was rooted in tradition—they preferred to manage systems manually, following a more "traditional" approach.

In one particularly baffling conversation, I even heard the argument that automation was bad because it was "safer for a human administrator to type commands manually." This resistance to modernization not only slowed down development and deployment processes but also increased the risk of human error, ironically undermining the very safety they aimed to preserve.

4. "Résumé-Driven Development (RDD)"

R\u00e9sum\u00e9-Driven Development (RDD) is another common mistake made by architects. This occurs when decisions are driven more by what looks impressive on the architect's r\u00e9sum\u00e9 than by what is actually needed for the project. Architects guilty of RDD prioritize trendy tools, frameworks, or methodologies to boost their personal career prospects, often at the expense of practicality and project success.

The problem with RDD is that it shifts the focus from solving real problems to adopting flashy technologies that may not align with the team's skills, the company's goals, or the project's requirements.

When designing a large system as a junior architect in the late 2000s, I was seduced by the ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) trend and proposed a solution that included it. In hindsight, the client was not mature enough to effectively integrate such a technology.

Even though the ESB