The job title used to be 'systems analyst'. And that job was fairly essential to getting a large system with a lot of moving parts to work together as a whole. For projects of a certain size someone needs to have the higher level overview.
Now, plenty of those calling themselves 'software architects' could not code if their life depended on it, but as an alternative to being put out to pasture analysts tended to be a bit older and a bit more knowledgeable than us 'code monkeys' as you put it, but I learned more from those analysts than I did from my pears about proper software design.
Now, plenty of those calling themselves 'software architects' could not code if their life depended on it, but as an alternative to being put out to pasture analysts tended to be a bit older and a bit more knowledgeable than us 'code monkeys' as you put it, but I learned more from those analysts than I did from my pears about proper software design.