The Non-Coding Architect

I read a blog post about "anti-teams", not that I found the blog highly related to my work or research, but this particular post gave some food for thought. In particular I started to wonder if I fall into the category of the "Non-coding Architect".

It is true that I don't write any code for the projects I'm involved in presently at Volvo. This mainly due to two reasons:
First; the provisional architecture is usually settled very early in the project, often before the majority of developers have started working (why this is so is almost the subject of an entire thesis and will not be covered in this blog post. For now just accept that it is not a decision of the architect).
Second; most of the code is written not by the OEM (the manufacturer for you who are not familiar automotive terminology) but by suppliers. This is also a decision made way above the head of me as architect. It is part of a general business strategy on high management level, which I don't really feel I'm involved in.

To my defence I am one of the few developers at the EESE department at Volvo Cars that actually has hand-written code in C (and just a few lines of assembler) that is included in cars delivered to customers (and not just pushed the auto-coding button in Simulink). But as I said in the beginning, it is very seldom I do any actual coding in the platforms I'm architecting. It is very seldom I do any coding at all these days. I need to ponder this more...