What system engineers do?

Answer 1

In the context of Software/Application development, the System Engineer role is a more “generic” (or general) term for what an application development team would typically call a “System Analyst” (or perhaps a System Architect or Solution Architect).  The common definitions of all these terms (e.g., provided by Wiki,or applied in industry) are very overlapping.  

View it this way: the person responsible for guiding the development of a complex system that is a mix of computing hardware and software, as well as non-computing components such as the packaging & delivery mechanisms that go into a missile defense system, (or the robot that cleans the bottom of your pool), would commonly be called a “Systems Engineer”. 

The analogous role serving a purely software/computing application development effort would likely be called a System Analyst (or Solution/Software Architect). 

So Boeing likely employs lots of System Engineers – Google likely employs lots of System Analysts (or Solution/Software Architects).

Regardless, all these rolls form the bridge between the business owners/sponsors and the technical team responsible for building a functional system/product/application from the ground up. As such, System Engineers might get involved with some or all of the following activities: 

§ Gain a full understanding of requirements

§ Develop technical documentation/diagrams used by implementation team

§ Underlying third-party component and platform selection.

§ Think through usability details and contribute to the user interface specification

§ Conduct Proof-of-concept exercises for parts of the solution not fully understood

§ Apply “best engineering practices” to ensure high performance, reliability, availability, etc. of the product. 

§ Direct the testing and monitoring of the system ongoing …

§ Be the liaise among sponsors, vendors and other IT staff during problem resolution 

In smaller organizations, the Systems Engineer might have a larger role in actually building a system/product (e.g., developing the software).