How to find them: Good places to recruit candidates include the consulting divisions of IT services vendors, like IBM Global Services, and of the actual application makers, like Oracle and SAP, as well as among the ranks of experienced application architects in IT organizations, experts say.

What to look for: Potential hires should be problem solvers and have the people skills to lead groups of talented, often opinionated developers, Estes says. "Programming is kind of an art and people have different ideas about how to design, implement and test code, so you have to be a good referee," he says. Project management skills are also key. And a thorough understanding of the organization's business goals is a must. "Applications architects must understand the business problem first and foremost, and be able to look at a broad range of technology solutions, so it's very important that they don't have technology biases," Cortina says.

Salary range: $80,000 to $120,000

Elimination round: A good candidate should be able to explain in detail a specific application development project they led from start to finish, with concrete details of the entire project lifecycle, including design, analysis, testing and implementation, Estes says. "If they can't walk you through all that, they may be a programmer but not a true architect," he says.

Growing your own: A strong case can be made for internal candidates who are familiar with the organization's software. Senior application developers should have the experience necessary to grow into the applications architect job, experts say.