Software architecture is the set of principal design decisions about a system. These design decisions are the ones that imbue the system with its defining qualities and characteristics, and ultimately make the biggest difference about whether a system will succeed or fail at its goals. They are also among the hardest to change, and create the biggest risks if you get them wrong. Today, it is easier than ever to write powerful software by leveraging rich technology stacks, frameworks, and component libraries. The dark side of this, however, is that these elements make many of the principal – that is, architectural – design decisions about your system on your behalf. Worse yet, concerns that architects typically try to “abstract away,” such as deployment platforms, infrastructure technologies, and hardware, are once again increasingly influencing the designs of software systems. The net result of these trends is that fewer and fewer principal design decisions are left in the hands of the architect, yet the architect is still accountable for system success. Is there a way for architects to adapt to these trends, or is software architecture doomed?