Table of Contents
What is an information architect?
The information architect, or in Italian information architect, is the leading figure and focus of all design activities: they structure, organise and make a website or software application content searchable and navigable.
They therefore help users find the information they’re looking for by weighing user needs against the technical limitations and purpose of the program.
That of the information architect is still a little-known profession in some countries, like Italy, for exemple. You will find it in many job ads under the name “Data Architect”.
As explained on the Italian Architecta association website, all the activities that information architects are concerned with are implied in the two words that make up their name:
- information (“information, content”) - they deal with organizing and grouping content so that it is consistent with the company’s goals and matches the user’s expectations and mental models of organizing and navigating the topics covered;
- architect (“designer”) - for web and software design, information architects must have a deep understanding of clients and their goals (short- and long-term) and users (site targets, needs and expectations analysis, direct interviews, questionnaires, and workplace surveys).
A data/information architect must master, among other things:
- System developmental
- Data modeling and storage
- Analysis and reporting tools
- Business methodologies
- Project management
- Legal framework
- Communication
Finally, a data/information architect may have several responsibilities, including:
- Understanding real business needs and defining strategies to meet them
- Identifying the system(s) architecture in which data converge
- Defining the path followed by the data within the organisation
- Cross-departments and stakeholders collaboration
What skills should an information architect have? Which ones are most in demand?
Without getting lost in theoretical explanations, to better understand how the real market is providing opportunities for information architects, we examined several online job posts (from Indeed, LinkedIn, etc.) in different languages (English, Italian, French, Spanish, and Chinese).
You can find some examples below.
1. American multinational financial services company
Profile name: “Principal UX Content Strategist”
Technical requirements
- Experience in digital content design
- Experience in UX writing and/or content strategy
- Experience in defining, testing, and delivering exceptional digital experiences
- Experience in financial services or other complex industry
- Knowing how to provide best-in-class digital experiences to gain customers confidence
Soft skills
- Teamwork and leadership skills
- Good communication and problem solving
- Flawless information management
- Planning and organizing
- Ability to work under pressures
2. American Bank
Profile name: “Data Architect”
Technical requirements
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience
- Expertise in application, data and infrastructure architecture
- Knowledge of at least one area of technical architecture
- Familiarity with the architecture and design of all systems
- Experience in risk control and compliance
Soft skills
- Strategic thinking
- Passion for strategy and business processes
- Teamworking abilities
- Ability to build rapport to achieve common goals
- Leadership
3. Big Data start-up
Profile name: “Data Architect”
Technical requirements
- Ability to design and build a data architecture
- Ability to collect labor market data from different sources (internal, scraping, API, etc)
- Ability to process, organize and standardize data (roles, departments, tasks, salaries, etc)
- Ability to create an analysis tool
Soft skills
- Resourcefulness and creativity
- Goal setting and willingness to stay constantly updated
- Flawless information management
- Problem solving
4. Italian consumer credit institution
Profile name: “Senior Information Technology Architect”
Technical requirements
- Good knowledge of operating systems, hardware virtualisation, major networking protocols, major architectural patterns used in web application development, and major design patterns
- Knowledge of popular web application frameworks in the areas of authentication, authorization, and access control
- Good English knowledge
- Good French knowledge
- Experience of at least 3 years as cloud architect
- Experience in a consulting firm can be a plus
Soft skills
- Teamwork (with emphasis on Agile team methodologies)
- Good communication skills and resiliency
- Flexibility, curiosity, proactivity, creativity and emotional intelligence
- Problem solving and decision making
- Ability to work under pressures
- Accountability, transparency and ability to listen to both internal and external customers
5. European company of electronic management and automated systems products
Profile name: “Data Architect – AI technology”
Technical requirements
- Computer engineer, PhD or equivalent, with ideally 2 years of experience developing data processing and transformation tools
- Significant experience in data architecture: design for failure, scaling, performance, observability, cybersecurity
- Experience in Agile environment and DevOps culture, SAFe (security culture) is a plus
- Fluent English (comfortable in international environment)
- Knowledge of electrical distribution and/or industrial automation is an advantage
- Languages: Python, Matlab, R, object-oriented languages (Java, C++, C#, JavaScript)
- Cloud platforms: Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Service (AWS)
- Tools: AKS, Databricks, Docker, Spark, OpenData Soft, Git
Soft skills
- Good interpersonal skills
- Curiosity
- Accuracy
- Problem solving (especially for problems posed by customers)
- Team spirit
- Pragmatism
- Resourcefulness
- Being a good listener
6. Global advanced semiconductor startup
Profile name: “Information Architect”
Technical requirements
- Experience in designing digital TOPs for PCI Express (PCIe), etc.
- Deep knowledge of Register transfer level (RTL) design, hybrid digital-analog design
- Fluent English
Soft skills
- Problem solving
- Strong communication and presentation skills
- Accuracy and resourcefulness
A summary of the most common skills (technical and personal) that an information architect must have can be taken from these examples (and others not listed):
Ideal information architect’s technical skills
- Experience in digital content design
- Experience in UX writing and content strategy (including complex industries)
- Excellent knowledge of the English language
- Good knowledge of:
- Operating systems
- Hardware virtualisation
- Main networking protocols
- Main architectural patterns used in application development
- Main design patterns
- Cloud platforms
- Ability to design and build a data architecture
- Ability to create analysis tools
- Bachelor’s degree in computer engineering or equivalent, with at least 2 years of experience in developing data processing and transformation tools
- Knowledge of languages:
- Python
- Matlab
- R
- One or more object-oriented languages (Java, C++, C#, JavaScript)
Soft skills an information architect must have
- Ability to work in a team
- Agile methodology
- Flexibility, curiosity, proactivity, creativity and emotional intelligence
- Leadership
- Accountability, transparency and ability to listen to both internal and external customers
- Resourcefulness
- Ability to work under pressures
- Ability to stay up to date
- Problem solving
- Strategic thinking
- Information management
Programs and software that an information architect should know about
A successful information architect therefore has a significant wealth of knowledge and skills. It is worth adding a few details about some of the programs and systems that are often mentioned in information architect job posts.
Azure
Azure is the public cloud through which Microsoft provides cloud computing services, including data storage and archiving, analytics, application development, computing resources and more.
Kubernetes
Kubernetes is a portable, extensible, open source platform for managing workloads and packaged services. It is similar to Docker (see below), but is more aimed at package management than package creation and deployment.
AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service)
AKS is a system that simplifies the management of Kubernetes containers in the Azure environment, reducing administrative load and automating routine tasks.
Docker
Docker is a suite of development tools that enables the creation, testing, sharing, and deployment of individually “packaged” applications. These packages are standardized units called containers that provide everything needed for their proper execution, including libraries, system tools, code, and runtime.
Databricks
As explained on Databricks website,
“With origins in academia and the open source community, Databricks was founded in 2013 by the original creators of Apache Spark, Delta Lake and MLflow. As the world’s first and only lakehouse platform in the cloud, Databricks combines the best of data warehouses and data lakes to offer an open and unified platform for data and AI.”
Apache Spark
Apache Spark is an engine for performing data engineering, data science and machine learning, i.e., an open source framework for distributed computing.
Git
Git is a distributed version control system conceived in 2005 by Linus Torvalds. Through versioning, developers keep track of all changes made over time.
Conclusion
Information architect often juggles two very distinct realities; the sphere of programmers and that of the end users of the applications they are working on.
The balance almost always hangs on the side of computer science knowledge, so an information architect is most often required to have a solid background in computer engineering, to the point where a technical degree is considered as a must have requirement.
For this, in addition to the programs or systems mentioned, they are also required to have knowledge of one or more programming and analysis languages (such as Python, Java, JavaScript, C++, etc.)
However, the information architecture and design work is extensive. Companies also value (and seek) profiles with different, non-technical backgrounds, having the skills outlined above and, most importantly, able to keep up to date in a constantly changing professional landscape.
If you need to organize or (re)design your business content, contact us, we will be happy to take a look at your project.
