I have always preferred to call myself a “Dev” and thats it.

To me, “Architect” is a loaded term. It could mean quite a lot of things in real world :
– Person who keeps himself up-to-date with the various technologies and solutions that is prevailing, trending and emerging
– Person who is not hands-on
– Person who is a power user of PowerPoint 😉
– Person who when needed, may not be able to fold his sleeves and get his hands dirty on a specific code problem, troubleshooting etc.

However, Neal Ford has explained in a much better way here…am atleast able to relate to it well and also able to reflect upon myself…

• Thing Big picture
• Try and “know” various technologies in breadth and try and apply them to solve a business problem, and go “depth” on need basis
• Is able to effectively provide solutions to business problems using Technology
• And yes, “you should not be an ivory tower architect” where you stay too far away from code and become almost untouchable 🙂