I Code Microservices. But I’m Called an Architect
- Sunil Dutt Jha
- Apr 30
- 4 min read
1. What I Do
My title says Architect. My work says something else.
I design microservices. I define APIs. I decide service boundaries. I review code structure. I guide teams on deployment patterns—Kubernetes, containers, scaling strategies.
This is important work. But is this architecture?
2. Where This Work Actually Sits (P5–P6)
What I actually operate inside is the implementation layer.
I work on how services are split, how they communicate, how they scale, how they are deployed. These are decisions about execution—how software is built and run. These sit in P5 (Implementation Tasks) and partly in P6 (Operations).
Microservices, containerization, API contracts, CI/CD pipelines—these are all refinements of implementation. They improve agility, scalability, and maintainability.
But they do not define what the enterprise is, what decisions it must make, or how those decisions flow across departments. Yet I carry the title Architect.
3. Why I Believe I Am Doing Architecture
Because I define structure in code. Because I break monoliths into services. Because I influence how systems are designed. Because teams depend on my decisions.
All of this gives a sense of structural code control. But the code structure I define is for system implementation. It does not define the system, visualize the system, or show how the system fits inside the enterprise.
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