12 Essential Big Data Skills for Software Architects

This session will focus on the big data skills that are needed by software architects. The area of big data is dealing with a massive expansion of tools and technologies. Finding the right people, tools and technologies can a bit of a challenge.

This presentation will focus on the skills needed for navigating the big data waters from an architectural perspective.


About Dave Hendricksen

Dave is a senior architect for Thomson Reuters and has worked for Thomson Reuters for over 20 years where his focus is on architecting and delivering enterprise hybrid big data systems.

Dave has written two books with Addison-Wesley, and is currently working on a third:


  • 12 Essential Skills for Software Architects – this book focuses on the soft skills needed by software architects, and has also been translated to Chinese.

  • 12 More Essential Skills for Software Architects – this book focuses on the day to day technical skills needed by software architects.

  • (In Progress) Enterprise Big Data – this book focuses on how to architect and build enterprise big data systems.


  • Dave is also the head coach for the Eagan High School FIRST Robotics program with over 150 students and over 60 mentors. Dave also likes to build things like trebuchets, go carts, and rain barrel watering systems.

    More About Dave »