Slashdot Mirror
Software Engineering vs. Systems Engineering?
An anonymous reader asks: "I recently graduated with a master's degree in computer engineering. I am currently a software engineer for a defense contractor. They (same company) have now offered me a position as a systems engineer. Any advice? What are the long and short term ramifications of the change, in respect to job duties, advancement, compensation? I am pretty much fresh out of college, with only a year of co-op experience. I am a little over whelmed by the choice with no experience to go by, but I also don't want to pass up a great opportunity. Thanks for the help."
In systems engineering they focus on killing the whole person.
Sorry. Can't help it. Consider the ethics of what you'll do for a living in either position.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
"Also try asking people that already have the position what they do and decide if you would like doing what they do"
/. lately and the Ask Slashdot threads, post an Ask Slashdot about it. I mean, Ask Slashdot, in my mind, is all about getting information from peers and other professionals. If it isn't that just what on earth is it good for?
Gee, that kinda looks like what he's trying to do, in a slightly more abstract sense. He IS fresh out of school, he says. He probably doesn't have many connections and more experienced peers to look to. I think it's a perfectly appropriate question for Slashdot because there are lots of professionals here who can tell him about what they do.
"Then grow some balls and make a damn decision by yourself."
What, without information? Let's have a leap of faith. But wait, you painted a path to this decision in your post. It involved querying others who do that kind of work. Thus he turned up here.
If you're so pissy about
This post is an agregate of posts that I've read in this discussion, filtered through MY filter based on MY experience. Take it as that.
As a systems engineer, you will be doing a lot of writing. This writing will be specifying how systems will work. In order to do this job competently, you will need a lot of experience with how the system has worked in the past. In order to write the correct stuff, you will need experience that you have not yet had.
My advise is to tough it out with a real-world company (i.e. not government contract work) for a bit and see what real-world engineering entails. After you get sick of that, go back to the government contracts and change the way they waste money.
Private industry teaches you a lot that you will not learn working at Boeing/Lockheed/whoever.