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As part of our work to define digital career pathways, we asked digital professionals and members of the Digital Profession Stream to provide a short 'day in the life' story about their role. David shares a day in the life of an Infrastructure Architect. 

Becoming an infrastructure architect 

With my background in customer service and a degree in information systems, I originally wanted to get a job as a business analyst but found work as a developer. In several subsequent roles, I gained experience scaling up applications and running production and support teams. And that's where my interest in architecture came in, and I was able to secure a position as an infrastructure architect.

A couple of years ago, my agency underwent a transformation program within our technology group. I suggested that we needed to plan and build our architecture. So, they decided to create a new role which is a blend of infrastructure and business architecture.

Using industry standards to set up processes                                 

In my current role, I've been decommissioning a couple of old systems. In the process, I identified that there were no procedures in place for decommissioning systems. After identifying the opportunity, I created a process for decommissioning old systems. To create the process, I was guided by industry standards in architecture practice. I have put my proposal to senior leadership and the design authority for approval.

An understanding of the IT ecosystem

I'm inquisitive and enjoy learning about all the different aspects involved. Considering many solutions and weighing them up is also a challenge that I enjoy. When looking at different solutions, you need to understand what the different things in the system do, especially when designing and putting things into play. I like to use agile thinking, where you try things quickly and find out what works and doesn't. 

For example, we have a network we're replacing with a new network because we're distributed across Australia with regional offices in every capital state. Suppose you want to find a way to access Microsoft 365 at each location. Can you access Microsoft 365 through a Sydney-Melbourne hub, or can we set something up in the cloud? That's the sort of thing where you require an understanding of the ecology of devices to assess different solutions. 

Providing the tools to succeed

A project that I am particularly proud of was my role in building a large-scale web application as part of a team. I was putting together bits and pieces to develop and design the system and working with the infrastructure department. My role was to ensure the elements – things like middleware and servers – were organised, available and fit together to be scaled up to a live application in the production environment. To ensure these elements were organised and available, and worked together, I needed to look at industry standards and ensure that they were followed. I also used some patterns for our web application, which our organisation provided. We put these elements together, so the developers had what they needed to scale the application to production.

Designing solutions for the future

Good infrastructure architecture is fit for purpose. At a strategic level, good infrastructure architecture will support a business need. When assessing if something is fit for purpose, you need to consider if it's required, how easy it is for the business to use it, how easy it is to maintain and how easy it is to grow with the business. You might have two solutions. One might be great but will be out of date in 12 to 18 months. One might be a little less functional but has growth potential. Cybersecurity is also another really important aspect. But from a financial perspective, you want value for money.

See if you have the skills to be and how to upskill to be an Infrastructure Architect. 

This profile was written by Christina Kumar for the APSC whilst on a secondment from the AFSA.

All views expressed in this blog are the author's personal views, and do not necessarily reflect the view of the department or agency.