How do you decide which Systems Engineering career path suits your interests and skills?

To me a System Engineer is the subject matter expert of not only on a system but also all of the interfaces, electrical, mechanical, etc... but also the system users. They are the person who understands the lifecycle of the system and are their to support it from the design to the day it is turned off. I actually never thought about becoming a system engineer until the day I was offered the job. I was a good problem solver. I wrote a white paper on how to solve an issue and the next thing I know I get asked if I want to be the engineer to design and implement the solution.

From my experience after my masters in systems engineering, i realised that I am someone who enjoys working with people and developing strategies and ensuring the right end to end engineering is implemented. Taking these characteristics of mine in account I decided to take up a role of a systems engineer with main focus on requirements, decomposition, stakeholder management,business feasibility analysis and process improvement and implementation. I know a lot of my peers who enjoyed system architecture and development and decided to move into MBSE as modellers or architects. There are some of my peers who enjoyed working on testbench and V&V. Overall it is important to identify your strengths, characteristics and interests and match.

Actually, although the definition is complete, I consider that no Systems responsible (architect, engineer, analyst) can limit its perimeter : all interfaces, life phases, configurations need to be considered at least by the lead Systems Engineer/Architect. Decomposition is always possible in subsystems or phases to distribute the workload or responsbilities, yet a global responsible with a complete view is mandatory.

On Industrial Plant, a Systems Engineer will be the custodian of the system - all the mechanical, electrical, instrumentation and programmable aspects. When upgrading control and monitoring equipment with programmable digital systems, due consideration of how the rest of the system interacts is vitality important. The System Engineer will need to take a holistic view and will be working in areas beyond their discipline and need to be able to articulate with those of other disciplines who they request assistance from.

To determine the right Systems Engineering career path, assess your interests, skills, and strengths, then research various specializations, consider industry demand, and seek advice from professionals in the field to align your career choice with your aptitudes and passions. Given the multidisciplinary nature of Systems Engineering any type of engineer can develop the skillset and mindset to dawn the title of Systems Engineer and add whichever flavor (specialty) of engineering you desire to it.

From my experience, although software/hardware tool proficiency is useful, Systems Engineering is mainly about experience: anticipating issues, identifying interfaces or being able to transform into requirements all the knowedge of past experiences. It is about using our own knowledge, and being able to understand and synthesize contributions from others specialists and experts, and generating a resulting constraint, link, specification, etc. Innovation and creative are extremely useful but can be risky as innovation and creativity do not always match with budget and schedule constraints, who are also a reality of industrial projects.

Experience with wordcraft, grammar, syntax, translation are also good skills to have. Context clue identificaiton is one of the largest thngs I use every day.

If you consider any role in systems engineering, apart from technical skills, being a requirement, Analytical skills and attention to detail is a requirement. Be it Systems Architect, Systems Modeller, Systems Engineer Or Simulations Experts they need to have attention to details and analytical skills as must without that technical communication would becomes difficult.

Before the system engineering skills, person should be well versed in the project that they are going to work upon, System engineering assist in doing so as well, System engineering is mainly about gathering correct information from all sources and anticipating what could go wrong and how to approach the solution.

In my experience, the best systems engineers are those folks who have had a role/responsibility to deliver for application a working piece of hardware or software, i.e. turning powerpoint into working hardware or software.

I would say speaking to someone in the field can help you get an idea if this is something you would like to do Almost all systems engineers will benefit from project management skills since systems engineers act as the primary interface between management, customers, suppliers, and specialty engineers in the systems development process.

Systems Engineering that involves a niche or area of discipline that you've enjoyed exposure to makes a world of difference. Fundamentally, the engineering process is made of several frameworks that are interchangeable depending on the work. I find it refreshing to work requirements, testing/verification for systems in my skillset (intelligence, signals, cybersecurity). It keeps me on my feet.

You have to consider your motivation. Are you pay motivated or “make a difference” motivated? Maybe both. If your motivation is to make a difference, then in which field are you interested in driving change and making an impact? I work in the defense healthcare world. It’s been a great opportunity to make a difference in 2 areas simultaneously. Your focus doesn’t need to be narrow. Think broadly and don’t expect the start of your career to follow the same path forever. Diversity in experience is valuable. Be open to something, learn it and do it to the best of your ability, then stay if you love it or carry that experience to another industry that might be of more interest to you.

I completely agree. It is like listening to music: we tend to focus on specific instruments, and are also more attracted to some musical genres. In system engineering it is the same: it is all about finding your music type, your instrument, and managing to creating songs that sound good with all the other musicians involved... and that the audience need and want!

Systems engineering can be applied in any field if decided. It is a methodology which can be applied to any project or product. Starting from the crude requirements to progressing on further design, will trigger a relentless cycle of improving the requirements itself and it’s an evolving process. So after crude requirements, functional problems will arise that will lead to finer requirements that will in turn refine the functional design which will result in a great product!

I would also add that systems engineering can be practiced at different stages of a project: working in advanced programs is not the same as in development phase, or serial production, or even later. Rythm and type of decisions are very different, even inside a same industrial sector. Taking this into account is also very important.

To create a complicated system, an engineer must have a lot of patience and perseverance. The more complex the system the longer and more tedious a project it becomes. An engineer cannot figure out everything at once. It takes time to see the big picture, to look for all the small details. You will test and test and still find errors. You have to have patience to know that it takes time and determination to keep going after hundreds of failed attempts.

At the end of the day, the best systems engineer will be the one with most experience and will to learn. Always be eager to expand your knowledge, and to take on new challenges in different technologies, fields, and stages of a project.

Make this a lifelong learning opportunity. Get experience in the entire OSI stack. The best systems engineers I know understand everything from the bottom to the top of the stack.

To answer the question, a person is going to have had experience in each of areas of systems engineering as called out in the Vee model or agile model. Each area has its challenges but unless you have had experience in an area you won’t know if that is a fit for you. My preference is to have had experience in each area and then decide. I can tell you that a systems engineer that has had experience in verification and validation of a system would be a strong requirements developer.

At some point in your career, you will have led, followed, and worked in a team. The best systems engineers know how to do all three well. A good leader knows how to follow and work together with others. A leader understands what his or her team needs to know and understand. The inability to do all three can be detrimental to a project. Systems engineers, more often than not, do extremely important work and need a good leader and a good team to follow.