It's pronounced Diane. I do data architecture, operations, and backend development. In my spare time I maintain Massive.js, a data mapper for Node.js and PostgreSQL.
Architecture is a way to say 'systems design' in one big word instead of two medium words. As a discipline, it invites thinking of software in big-picture terms as a network of discrete but interdependent moving parts which acts on and is in turn acted upon by external entities and factors. Architecture can be done well or poorly but it's always done as soon as you move past the trivial. Devoting effort and consideration to it helps produce flexible, efficient, maintainable code. Devoting so much effort and consideration to it that your architects don't even touch the systems they nominally work on is probably a bad idea.
Architecture is a way to say 'systems design' in one big word instead of two medium words. As a discipline, it invites thinking of software in big-picture terms as a network of discrete but interdependent moving parts which acts on and is in turn acted upon by external entities and factors. Architecture can be done well or poorly but it's always done as soon as you move past the trivial. Devoting effort and consideration to it helps produce flexible, efficient, maintainable code. Devoting so much effort and consideration to it that your architects don't even touch the systems they nominally work on is probably a bad idea.
Ruth Malan has some interesting thoughts on the role of the architect in modern software development.