I'm a software architect, kick started my first company in this great industry at 1992 by writing my own optical mark recognition solutions on machine code. Thanks to everybody participated to this industry, we can now use just an API to provide the same solutions. That's why I moved to arhitect path from engineering and am a big Microsoft follower as MCP, MCAD, MCSD, MCTS, MCPD and MCT since the last 15 years. I believe that there is no direct upgrade from engineer to architect; those require totally different mindsets and knowledge base. As I FALL from engineer into architect path 3 years ago, I started from the bottom and still feel have a long way to go.