SDET vs Architect?

 I had somebody asked me the other day what the difference was between a test automation architect and an SDET.

An SDET is a software developer in test. Software developer skillset applied to testing. I'm glad this now has a name and certification. When I started, there wasn't such.

An Architect is any developer who's got enough miles under their belt that they look at everything from a the perspective of how it all fits together and interacts with everything outside of itself.

Can an SDET be an architect? Absolutely. Are all SDETs experientially equipped to approach their work as Architects? No more so than all developers are architects.

I started working with computers in 1979, I got my first job in computers in 1982, got my first support gig in 1987. my first QA gig in 1990. First automation assignment in dec 1990. 

A year later, and I was overwhelmed by the maintenance. It was a month after I realized that fact that I started thinking about test automation from the perspective of architecture.

My own interest came first from trying to solve my own problems, and then from those my management asked of me. How can I reuse most of what I produce? How can I reduce maintenance? Can you build out a lab so we can run these over and over? I want you to make it so everybody in QA can create automated tests, even the non programmers. We have too much data left over from all those old builds and test runs. 

I've solved every problem thrown at me. I'm a good tester, but I'm a much better architect.