OVERVIEW
What is an Automation Architect?
An automation architect’s main goal is to design and develop strategies that will allow an organization to automate its processes. They work with company leadership, departmental stakeholders, and IT departments to see the holes in an automation process before it starts.
Automation architects need to be familiar with technology, but they also need an understanding of workflow, industry, and business parameters. Their goal is to streamline systems and make them more effective, oftentimes under tight budget and timeline restrictions.
If you are a lover of technology, an effective problem solver, and have a keen eye for details that others often miss, then automation architecture may be a natural and fruitful career path for you.
RESPONSIBILITIES
What Does an Automation Architect Do?
Automation architects face technical and non technical challenges every day. They work as the linking tool between an automation system and the human workforce.
Paul Delory, a research director at Gartner, the world’s leading research and advisory company, said, “To appoint an automation architect is to recognize that automation has become its own discipline within the enterprise IT organization, one that entails making fundamental architectural decisions.”
Automation architects work within an organization to answer these questions:
- Which tools will be used, and for what purposes?
- What is the best way to implement the tools?
- Who will be in charge of maintaining each tool?
- How will corporate policies be decided and enforced?
- To what extent should technical requirements drive business decisions, and vice versa?
- How can the IT organization best collaborate with the business it serves?
The day-to-day might look like assessing various departmental requirements, ensuring that processes are testable, validating expectations and ensuring that they are achieved during testing processes, and monitoring ongoing tests.
EDUCATION & BEST DEGREES
How Do I Become an Automation Architect?
Step 1: Earn a bachelor’s degree. Automation architects will need a bachelor’s degree in order to get started in their career. A bachelor’s degree in data analytics is an ideal starting place for this career. This type of degree will give you important IT fundamentals and skills, experience with software, and potentially certifications. It will also give you insight into business processes and settings that are crucial for automation success.
Step 2: Gain experience. An automation architect will need some experience in data management and automation processes in order to move forward in their career. Take opportunities to learn more about automation in order to gain the experience you need for this type of career.
Step 3: Earn a master’s degree. An advanced degree is preferred and usually necessary for advanced automation positions. A master’s degree in data analytics can be crucial in helping you have the skills to understand raw data and help businesses make key decisions based on the information you uncover. Continued career growth goes hand-in-hand with the advanced training that a master’s degree can offer.
Best Degrees for an Automation Architect
Technology
Data Analytics – B.S.
Lean into data, and walk away with a cutting-edge online degree:...
Lean into data, and walk away with a cutting-edge online degree:
- Time: 62% of graduates finish within 36 months.
- Tuition and fees: $3,835 per 6-month term.
- Courses: 39 total courses in this program.
Certifications in this program at no additional cost include:
- AWS Cloud Practitioner
- CompTIA Data+
- CompTIA Project+
- Udacity Nanodegree—a unique, highly recognized credential designed to prepare you for a career in data science
- MSI Change Management (Optional Certification)
- Certiprof Design Thinking Professional Certificate (Optional Certification)
Skills for your résumé that you will learn in this program:
- Data management
- Data wrangling
- Statistical analysis
- Visualization
- Leadership and management
- Model deployment & storytelling
Technology
Data Analytics – M.S.
Lead businesses with strong analysis skills:...
Lead businesses with strong analysis skills:
- Time: 61% of graduates finish within 20 months.
- Tuition: $4,520 per 6-month term.
- Courses: 11 total courses in this program.
This program consists of three specialization areas which allow you to gain specific experience and skills that will benefit your future career. You can choose from data science, data engineering, and decision process engineering specializations to enhance your degree.
Skills for your résumé that you will learn in this program:
- Data Modeling
- Big Data
- Business Intelligence
- Data Quality
- SQL
- Python
How Much Does an Automation Architect Make?
$101,114
According to Payscale, the median annual salary range for an automation architect is $101,114. You can expect a base pay much higher than more traditional fields, with a salary range starting around $81,000. With a higher learning degree—like an MSDA—automation architects set themselves up to lead cross-departmental initiatives, oversee large teams, and rank among C-suite executives.
What Is the Projected Job Growth?
Favorable
Automation architects find themselves in a developing field, as it is a fairly new role. While there isn’t yet a substantial amount of data that verifies the job outlook for automation architects, as more and more corporations around the world automate their processes, these skilled leaders will find themselves in high demand.
SKILLS
What Skills Does an Automation Architect Need?
Automation architects thrive when they can think outside of the box. They are at their best when they match their technical knowledge and understanding of the company with a creative approach to problem-solving.
If you are considering a career as an automation architect, you will need to have some of the following skills:
- The ability to assess current business processes and to identify problems
- The desire to start and maintain the automation process from start to finish, architecting the framework
- Industry knowledge of automation options for a particular process
- Strong and effective communication skills, with an ability to delegate
- High attention to detail
- Determined problem solver
- Experience documenting flow charts, context diagrams, or other system-related architectures
- Cross-cultural and cross-functional working experience
- Familiarity with multiple software programs
- AWS and/or cloud learning knowledge
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