In real life the job responsibilities are much more well defined than the broad term "architect". In of the companies I have worked for, I have seen two different architect positions.
The System architect - who is responsible for overall system structure, deployment, app servers, web servers, clustering configurations, database hosts, network stuff, security etc. This is someone I call technology architect or sometimes infrastructure architect. This person understands the big picture, but by no means a person focussed in any one of the abovesaid areas. Breadth of exposure to various areas is more imporant for this role than detailed understanding of any one particular aspect of the system architecture.
The application architect - one who designs overall app development strategy, choses the frameworks, develops blueprints, evaluates various products and technologies for feasibility, works across functional app development teams. This person is also responsible for performance engineering, application components and understands the repertoire of tools and facilities offered by a technology platform. He makes and owns technology directives and leads the team towards a mature, robust, scalable architecture that meets the overall system expectations. An
SCEA with a decent number of years of "hands on" Java experience will probably fit into this bucket.
Hope this helps,
