InfoQ Software Architecture & Design Trends Report 2022

ByEran Stiller

During the past month, I enjoyed participating in InfoQ’s yearly Software Architecture & Design Trends. The key takeaways of this report are:

  • “Data plus architecture” is the idea that, more frequently, software architecture is adapting to consider data. This holistically includes data quality, data pipelines, and traceability to understand how data influenced decisions and AI models.
  • Innovative software architecture is facilitating data quality the way we’ve improved code quality. Catching bad data early is as important as catching bugs early.
  • The practice of software architecture does not belong solely to people with the job title of architect. Every engineer can actively participate in the architecture, and architects should help facilitate that process.
  • One positive benefit of the pandemic and the shift to remote and hybrid work is increased asynchronous communication, which can manifest as Architecture Decision Records (ADRs).
  • Software architects are adapting their feedback loops, which can be challenging when dealing with colleagues across many time zones or other remote work constraints. Good architects are learning from distributed working how to design better-distributed systems.

The complete report is available here. Along with the report, we published an accompanying podcast episode. This podcast episode is a chance to listen in on part of the editors’ conversation and hear some anecdotal examples from our panel of expert practitioners. Enjoy!