Competencies of Software Architect

Basic Algorithms and Data Structures 

• Big O notations 
• Recursion and backtracking 
• Linear data structures (linked list , dynamic list ,stack , queue , priority queue )
• Sorting 
• Searching (linear , binary , interpolation )
• Hashing (Hash function , collision resolution  - chaining , open addressing , double hashing/universal hashing )
• String Algorithms (KMP, Rabin Karp  , Boyce Moore)
• Trees (Binary Tree , Binary Search Tree, Binary Heaps )
• Tree Balancing algorithms (B-trees , AVL , 2-3 , red-black trees)
• Graphs (Minimum Spanning Tree , Shortest Paths , Cycle detection , dynamic connectivity )

Advanced Algorithms and Data Structures 

• Greedy Algorithms 
• Dynamic Programming 
• Linear Programming 
• Probabilistic Data Structures 
• Complexity classes (P,NP etc .)

Distributed Algorithm Concepts

• 2 phase commit 
• Paxos - solving consensus 
• Leader election 
• Consistent Hashing /Routing 
• Synchronous/Asynchronous communication 
• Fault tolerance
• Eventual Consistency 
• Replication 
• pub-sub using distributed queues
• Bloom Filters 

Distributed/Cloud Computing technologies 

• Basics of AWS or OpenStack  or Azure or IBM bluemix 
• No-SQL 
• Key value store  - Redis , Memcached
• Column Family - Cassandra 
• Document - MongoDB , Elastic Search 
• Graph Databases - Neo4j 
• Distributed Queues (SQS , RabbitMQ , Kafka)
• Distributed Locking /co-ordination  - Apache ZooKeeper 
• Map-Reduce frameworks 
• Hadoop eco-systems
• Apache Spark 
• REST web services (Jersey , apache CXF , Swagger )

REST/SOAP web services 

1.  Micro-service architecture 
• what is micro-service 
• How to design micro-service which persists data.
2. SOAP web services in general 
3. Differences between SOAP and REST , why REST ?
4.  REST Design principles 
• Idempotent (GET , HEAD , PUT) , (POST,PATCH)
• HATEOS  
• Security  (stateless , Authentication and  Authorization m Security frameworks (OAuth , Basic on    SSL , HTTPS , Digest , error messages  ) )
• Caching (cache-control , etag , validation , expiration )
• HTTP headers used for rest (Media-Type , Cache Control , Auth , Accept , Content-Type, If-Non- Match )
• Commonly used HTTP codes (1XX, 2XX, 3XX, 4XX, 5XX)
• Searching , sorting , filtering and paging  (Link headers , rel , href , query parameters )
• Documentation - Swagger 
• HTTP 1.1 vs HTTP 2.0
• Handling Asynchronous request (Notification URL , Push /Pull models ) 
• URL designing conventions 
• Versioning of APIs
• Error Messaging (user message , developer message , http error codes 4XX, 5XX) 
• JSON (snake_case , vs camelCase , DATE format)
5. REST frameworks - Jersey , Apache CXF , Spring Framework  , Play framework , REST Easy 

Basic References :
http://www.vinaysahni.com/best-practices-for-a-pragmatic-restful-api
RESTful Web Services
http://www.amazon.in/dp/9352130693
http://www.amazon.in/dp/059680168

Search Technologies 

• Elastic Search 
• Apache Solr 

Object Oriented Design 

• Design Patterns (at least design patterns from GOF)
• SOLID design principles 
• UML 

Java Technology Stack 

Java Language :

• Java Language basics (grammar , collections , exception handling )
• Concurrency 
•   Java Memory Model 
•   Pessimistic Concurrency control ( exclusive locks , read/write locks )
•   Optimistic Concurrency control (CAS based operations )
•   Java Concurrent Package (Locks , Concurrent collections , Semaphore , Latch , Cyclic Barriers ,  ThreadPools , Executors  etc.)
• Thread dump analysis 
• Lambda Expressions 
• Custom Annotations 
• Java Serialization Specifications 
• JVM architecture 
• Class loaders 
• Garbage Collection algorithms 
• Java Security 
• Regex 

Source Code Management

•  GIT
•  PerForce 
•  SVN 

Testing Frameworks 

• TDD
• Junit 
• TestNG
• BDD
• Concumber 

Cryptography 

Cryptographic hash functions