I can't speak for architects, but there is a very high bar for licensing for them. For lawyers, I had a friend at a top tier firm that interviewed with another and had to do a full doc review- essentially doing several hours of actual work. They were moving to a small boutique firm outside of "big law" so this may have been somewhat outside the norm.
Even in good times architecture is a crappy major (in the U.S.) from an economic standpoint - at least five years of university level education followed by at least three years of on the job training (misnamed as "internship" since there is no monitoring of employer behavior). There is also a series of comprehensive exams required after graduation and before licensure.
These days, the average newly licensed architect is more than ten years out of college - i.e. in her mid-thirties. Since in the U.S. a person cannot practice architecture without a license, a person without a license is not recognized as a professional and cannot work for themselves in general (small projects are exempt in most states, and state laws vary).
The high rate of unemployment for current graduates is hardly unusual because the industry is so cyclical. The S&L crisis of the late 1980's sent a large portion of that generation of graduates from the industry creating what is currently a succession gap in many firms due to a lack of mid-forties ownership track candidates to buy out retiring baby boomers.
Incidentally, many of that generation went into the newly emerging field of web-design.
Welders usually do a demonstration weld as part of the interview.
Architects bring a portfolio, and walk through it. And licensed architects have a majorly huge ordeal of a licensing process. After obtaining an accredited degree, you have to get signoff on performing 3,740 work hours in six areas of architecture practice (AXP, architectural experience program). You may need to work at multiple firms to get this experience, since not all firms do all types of architecture work.
You'll also need to take the ARE (Architect Registration Exam) and any state suplemental exams. The ARE is actually 6 separate exams, the shortest is 2 hours 40 minutes; total test time is almost 20 hours, but with breaks you're looking at 24 hours 20 minuted total appointment time. Most candiates prep and take one test at a time, but you've got a 5 year rolling window to pass them all, and the tests change from time to time. I'm not looking up how long the California suplimental exam takes, but I'm guessing it's at least a couple hours.
Some of the test is multiple choice stuff, but there's interview based tests and probably some practical work.
If you're thinking of becoming an architect because interviewing will be more straight forward, let me save you some of your life and say, don't do it. Anyway, most of the fun work is delegated to juniors/interns; if you want to make reasonable money, you've got to get up to partner, and then you're only doing client relations and very little design.
I took a government provided standardized test of computer knowledge to work at a school district in 1997, and it was full of useless questions about early 1980s tech. I can only imagine the depths of forgotten knowledge that would be needed for a Software Developer certification program. How many hours of debugging BASIC or bringing up a 68000 board from scratch would we all have to do in our work experience program? Or formal methods: in my 20+ year career, I've never gotten anything remotely close to a specification that could be used for formal methods, but I bet I'd need to get work hours and study up for the test.
Its a profession based on commission. The real challenge is landing a project. the partners/bosses of the firm take that risk. Lets say for instance, a residential project costs around a million $ to build. A architect makes about 5%-8% on average of that cost as fees = $80k. This is spread across lets say 3 people for a duration of 12-24 months. To conceptualise, design, develop a scheme, coordinate with the client, consultant and contractors and the develop detailed schedules and drawings whilst reviewing materials, samples and building code etc., does take an insane amount of time. Its like making a manual on how to build something for real. (Imagine this process as making an ikea design manual for an SOC or the latest iPhone) only, each iPhone is different and comes with lots of requirements and varied configurations.
Its also a profession based on experience and the more you have it, the better your chances of landing a bigger project. Hence people put in way too many hours than humanely required - with the hope that they climb the ladder or gain enough experience to start their own practice.
It will not be similar because unlike architecture (in the US), there are no legal barriers to web development.
In the US, architects are licensed state by state. All states require at least three years of structured experience and a series of tests to demonstrate minimum competency for licensure - one cannot practice without a license.
Most states require an accredited professional degree of at least five years (Bachelor of Architecture) those which do not typically require additional experience beyond three years depending on degree type.
I have about a half-dozen friends as architects in the US, and only 1 of them could do any of the things I mentioned. All have been practising residential and commercial and government architects for > 30 years.
I think that while your common sense is correct, the title of just "Architect" is protected legally.
To become a licensed Architect, one must have a degree from an NAAB-accredited program, complete 3,740 hours under the guidance of an Architect, and complete a long and difficult 7-part exam.
He can call himself a Software Architect, Information Architect, Technology Architect, or any other variation — but he is not allowed to call himself just Architect and can be sued for doing so.
Based on conversations with friends who did exactly that, the pay is crap, competition is intense (way too many architects graduating for the number of jobs available), client demands are ridiculous (extreme hours to meet deadlines are not uncommon), and a lot of the people running architectural firms are assholes.
I still don’t understand how ‘architect’ is an acceptable title. Here in the uk at least it’s a protected title, much like (medical) doctor and you can’t practice and call yourself an architect without approval from their governing body (the arb). Apparently that doesn’t apply to software developers though somehow?
Architecture is pretty similar. Some firms are OK, I know friends who have worked for some of the big name Starchitects and they are pretty abusive, the wonkier the geometry the more abusive. The main difference being you are being paid £25k/year after 7 years of Uni instead of £100k.
Honest question: So how's the architect biz? It seems like architect is one of those vaguely aspirational occupations (like lawyer) that could have gotten swamped in recent decades with folks such as Bill. People just looking for a good job, not necessarily on fire with passion for it. (Not that I'm saying you have to be full of passion for something in order to do it as a job - quite the contrary.)
I'm a software engineer that went through architecture school and I think you're glorifying architects a bit here.
The only reason why architects have a more gradual path as you describe is because there is a LOT of gatekeeping and feedback on your work is a LOT slower.
To become an architect you have to ideally go through schooling at a specific set of schools and then after that you have years of internships where you are at the mercy of the architect who supervises you. If you end up with a not-so-friendly boss you could end up working years of your youth in an unpaid internship and end up NOT getting any credit. That's years of delay to licensure. After getting enough credit and hours you still to take multiple exams, paying out of your own pocket, to get licensed. And unlike software, aspiring architects cannot spend a weekend or two to build projects on their own to put on a portfolio of work, and problems from anything you design can take months or years to crop up.
And even after all that only a tiny minority of architects end up in firms like SOM (like Google but for architects) and get to work in glamourous projects. The vast majority of architects just work on run-of-the-mill housing (not unlike CRUD apps) where the combination of building codes, the client's budget, zoning and other requirements often prevents you from doing anything too flashy.
The great thing about software really is the fact you have the independence and ability to build and publicize your own stuff whereas in all the other formal professions you can't without oversight.
I think some architects will offer this kind of supervision of the project as a service. I don’t know to what extent these are handled by different people at the firm from the design part but I expect there are small firms where one person can do both.
I think it’s wrong to think that all architects are like celebrity architects. If you’re designing a house there may be room for weird designs (if that’s what the client wants) but I think there’s also just a lot of technical or boring details that are handled by architects too.
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