What Makes a Great Architect? Lessons from Alibaba’s Platform Engineering

My Understanding of Technical Architecture

I joined Alibaba in 2014, worked in Alibaba Communication for two years, and entered the Business Platform team at the end of 2016. My first tasks were to solve large‑scale promotion (Double 11) challenges and ensure safe production, which led me to explore architecture deeply.

Top‑Level Design

Just as a national five‑year plan defines clear goals and outcomes, large‑scale business events like Double 11 require a well‑designed technical architecture that balances low cost, high efficiency, high stability, and the integration of new technologies.

Physical Architecture

Alibaba’s unit‑based architecture differs from other companies; it achieves continuous operation by deploying isolated units across distant data centers, emphasizing isolation, independence, and continuity.

Application Architecture

The “Star Ring” platform abstracts code co‑development into horizontal and vertical business packages, isolating business from business and business from the platform, reducing the complexity of merging, developing, testing, and deploying code across dozens of BUs.

Role of the Architect

An architect must use architectural thinking to solve real technical and business problems, not just fix isolated issues. They need to abstract problems, define them clearly, and apply solutions that can address entire classes of issues.

Architect’s Challenges

Architects must tackle complex problems that require innovative high‑concurrency and high‑availability solutions, adopt new approaches for long‑chain issues, and coordinate across teams to implement solutions.

Continuous Learning

Staying current with technological advances, systematically studying related fields, reading papers, and dedicating daily time to learning are essential for maintaining a broad technical breadth and deep understanding of networks, databases, cloud services, and more.

Global Perspective

Understanding a feature like “member” requires seeing its connections to other business functions (e.g., sales, transactions) and recognizing the broader ecosystem.

Technical Breadth

Mastering the full Alibaba stack—from iOS/Android/PC front‑ends to CDN, networking, service discovery, routing, HSF, databases, and messaging—allows architects to grasp inter‑dependencies and drive effective system evolution.

Business Understanding

Architecture must be driven by business needs; architects should engage with product owners, understand workflows, and translate technical advances into business value, fostering collaboration and avoiding siloed efforts.

Source: Alibaba Middleware