[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-86547-en":3,"doc-seo-86547-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":21,"is_downloadable":21,"audit_status":21,"page_count":22,"language":23,"language_code":24,"site_id":25,"html_lang":24,"table_of_contents":26,"faqs":27,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},86547,13056703019662,"Evangeline","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/be000253a8e92610077?_k=1778726343310543188",8,"Research & Report","Hidden or Formal Architects: Understanding Who Makes Architectural Decisions in Practice","Empirical research on software architecture investigates who performs architectural decision-making (ADM) in real organizations, especially when companies do not hire people with the formal title of software architect. The study uses a questionnaire with 54 participants from multiple companies and seven follow-up interviews. Results show ADM is frequently carried out by individuals without a formal architect title. A formal architect is mainly perceived as necessary in large companies and large teams, and prior work may have missed relevant practitioners when sampling only formal architects.","arXiv :2607 . 1 125 1v 1 [ cs . SE] 13 Jul 2026  \nHidden or Formal Architects: Understanding Who Makes Architectural Decisions in Practice  \nKlara Borowa 1􀀀[0000−0002−7160−5950], Dominik Nowak 1[0009−0008−5453−0150], and Mikołaj Nowak 1[0009−0000−3781−3329]  \nWarsaw University of Technology, Institute of Control and Computation Engineering,  \nWarsaw, Poland  \n[klara.borowa@pw.edu.pl](klara.borowa@pw.edu.pl)  \nAbstract. Empirical research on software architecture sometimes focuses on individuals holding the formal title of software architect. However, not all companies have individuals hired in such roles. Despite no formal architects, all systems have architectures, and there must be practitioners making the architectural decisions. This study aims to identify who, in practice, makes architectural decisions and in what environments the existence of a formal architect is perceived as necessary. This research employed a method consisting of a questionnaire with 54 participants from different companies and seven follow-up interviews. The findings indicate that architectural decisions are often made by individuals without a formal architect title. A formal architect is perceived as essential mainly in large companies and large teams. The results of this study show that many practitioners taking part in ADM may have been omitted by previous research, particularly if it focused on formal architects.  \nKeywords: Software Architecture · Architectural decision-making · Agile · Informal Architect  \n1 Introduction  \nThe concept of software architecture as a set of architectural decisions (AD) was introduced by Jansen and Bosch [15], and has shaped much research since. Farenhorst et al. [12] focused on ADs in their large-scale survey from 2006, and found that software architects were lonesome decision-makers who neglected sharing architectural knowledge. However, by 2015, based on an interview study with participants from 22 companies, Groher and Weinreich [14] revealed that architectural decision-making (ADM) was typically a group effort with one dedicated team member having the final say. The shift towards group ADM coincides with the rise of agile software development. In 2023, around 71% of practitioners reported working in an agile or partially agile environment [11] . Yet, in agile, a software architect’s role is considered ambiguous [31], e.g., Scrum assumes that no architect role exists, and that the team collectively makes decisions [27] .  \nSoftware architecture researchers often gather data from practitioners [24] . Often, this research only focuses on the perspectives of architects [3], or more  \n2 Borowa et al.  \nexperienced developers [23] . However, due to the dominance of agile methods, the people who perform ADM are likely not to have the architect title. As such, when searching for “architects”, researchers may risk obtaining data that is biased towards practitioners and teams that do have a formal architect. For instance, Demir et al. [10] surveyed 101 practitioners recruited from software-architecture communities and found that ADM is typically performed by teams of around 5 people, comprising architects and software developers. Yet, due to their sampling strategy, practitioners who were not formal architects or were not actively interested in software architecture were naturally excluded from the study.  \nStill, every software system has an architecture, whether its creators explicitly address ADM or let it “emerge” from everyday development. This makes it unclear which practitioners we should sample to obtain a complete picture of ADM phenomena. Additionally, sampling only formal architects, i.e., practitioners explicitly assigned to that role, may lead to overlooking certain kinds of companies and teams that view such a dedicated role as unnecessary.  \n1. RQ1: Who makes architectural decisions in practice?  \n2. RQ2: In what environments is a formal software architect necessary?  \nTo achieve this goal, we performed a","cbCaidIFA2LfhruJ","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaidIFA2LfhruJ","pdf",442790,2,1,16,"English","en",105,"# Introduction\n# Related Work","[{\"question\":\"What question does the study address about software architecture practice?\",\"answer\":\"It identifies who makes architectural decisions in practice and examines which environments lead practitioners to perceive a formal software architect as necessary.\"},{\"question\":\"How did the researchers collect the evidence?\",\"answer\":\"They conducted a questionnaire with 54 participants from different companies, followed by seven follow-up interviews to explore the questionnaire findings in more depth.\"},{\"question\":\"What are the key findings about the need for a formal architect?\",\"answer\":\"Architectural decisions are often made by individuals without a formal architect title, and practitioners view a formal architect as more 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