What is the focus of a system architect during the development of an application?

The focus of a system architect during the development of an application primarily revolves around configuring and unit testing individual application elements. This involves ensuring that each component of the application is correctly configured to meet design specifications and performs as intended. Unit testing is crucial in this phase, as it validates that each element operates properly, ensuring system reliability and performance before integration with other components.

By concentrating on configuration and testing, the system architect plays a vital role in establishing a robust framework for the application. This attention to detail helps catch issues early in the development process, reducing costs and time associated with fixing defects later on.

While configuring data instances, identifying business requirements, and designing business metrics are important aspects of application development, they typically fall within the scope of roles that either precede or complement the work of a system architect. Each of those tasks supports the overall application development process, but the hands-on component of configuring and testing individual application elements is a central focus for the system architect in their role.