Ten years ago, content “systems” were primarily content management applications and their kin; wikis, commerce sites, closed-box print applications, etc. Architecture was software solutioning and scaling the infrastructure to handle more traffic. DevOps meant “add Jenkins". Eight months of development work generally required a week or two of architectural deliverables, even when third-party services were involved.

Last year, as content systems architect for The Economist, Diana Montalion and her colleagues invested six months articulating the capabilities of the current system and crafting technology recommendations across the multiple engineering and architectural teams. Then they spent another six months designing the high-level target architecture.

What changed between then and now? The difference between legacy and modern content systems is as conceptual as it is technical. Architecting emergent systems requires an evolution from strategic planning to collaborative strategic thinking -- everyone seeing the parts through the lens of the whole. Architecture, and the role of architect, isn’t simply AWS certification. We are also a systems integrator, mirroring the desired qualities of the system and telling it's story.