I need to be blunt about the architecture team. They are overwhelmingly ineffective. Their performance is an embarrassment for what they're paid. They consistently demonstrate a profound inability to grasp practical constraints, rendering their input in meetings not just useless, but actively detrimental. As GCL, I view interfacing with them as a waste of my team's time and the company's money.
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@ea, don't under-estimate what a normal Fidelity engineering team is capable either. I wish I can point you to our squad. All formally trained in American universities except the three h1b contractors (coincidentally the three low performers), majority early career fresh blood, super strong chapter leader/tech lead, super strong squad/product lead, WLB valued and grind questioned. The young is tasked to do the architectural design under the guidance of the teach lead, reviewed by the whole team. This is how you grow a strong team!
In this time and age, best practice architectural patterns are one Google away and the only moat one can gain is through the day-to-day practice, like the younglings in our squad. How many FAE architects are still practicing anything?
@ay this is sadly, accurate. The good ones leave for other companies who don't bog them down with nonsense
@c5 correct, next target is the scrum masters, followed by the chapter leads. Not getting free snacks and having to go into the office is difficult for these whiners, so they have to lash out - boohoo
Dont compare Fidelity with Meta and Google. Engineering team is strong there where every sr engineer is expected to start working as an architect. Fidelity has many Principal/Director engineers who doent understand half of the things so they will hire architects hoping they add value. Its whole another issue that these architects dont bring value as they dont know whats happening E2E and think making ppt with few high level boxes will get the job done.
@bx here we go again with the hateful rhetoric
100% agreed!
The ones from the world’s largest democracy are the worst.
I ideated and designed a popular RESTful API. Our engineers built it in the best possible way. Our product manager helped to write the most easy-to-follow documentation. There is one eyesore in the API which is the result of compromise with a dinosaur group architecture lead (?). Next iteration of our API I'll stand up to him and not budge.
Their arrogance from their assumed authority coupled with their displayed ignorance is an amusing site in every meeting.
I actively avoid these fossils. Keep them the he-l out of our meetings. If you invite them, they'll just show up and rant like a lunatic ,all noise, no point.
These old timers are fossils. That whole department is a dinosaur waiting for the meteor to hit. Useless. Total dead weight.
The head of Fidelity Architecture and Engineering (FAE) would disagree, but that's because he's outdated.
It boils down to what kind of engineering culture the firm want to foster for the future:
- Bottom Up. Engineer driven culture at Meta, Google, OpenAI, and earlier years of AWS. Engineering teams are trusted to innovate independently, are held accountable for all aspects of the work (ideation, architecting, design, development, test, operations) as well as the outcome (non-"profitable" teams are disbanded or cut).
- Top Down. Relics of waterfall mindset and a deep distrust of engineering teams, current Fidelity upper management believes a helicopter architect is needed to babysit each engineering team. The problem is majority of the architects are not competent and up-to-date enough to perform their intended function. As OP ranted, the existential pressure turns them into frictions, red tapes, distractions and misdirection.
To be fair, many engineering teams (Core Wealth Platform, I'm looking at you) need helps indeed. But instead of provide architects as crutches, we could rebuild the weak teams so they can stand on their own.
All in all, the presence of the army of architects teams is a testament of Fidelity engineering's immaturity.
100% true.
One particular architect spoke up and delayed a routine product improvement by months. He was wrong by a mile.