
NASA Systems Engineering Handbook (2008) [pdf] - efm
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20080008301.pdf
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thearn4
Just a note: systems engineering at NASA has it's own internal definition that
is closer to a management role than a technical one. Source: am NASA engineer.

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derefr
The NASA definition the original one, I would think. How are people using
"systems engineering" as a term elsewhere, that is incongruent with the NASA
definition?

I mean, a "system" at the scale of a NASA project comprises operationalized
learning across both machines and people (and supplier-contracts, and legal
corporate entities.) With tolerances and maintenance plans and backups for the
people-parts as well as the machine-parts of the system.

I don't know if I would describe the design of such a system as "management";
it's more akin to the sort of incentive-system creation that tax regulators or
MMO game designers go through, but with a lot more rigor and data.

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icegreentea
I think NASA's use of "systems engineering" is more or less in line with how
everyone except the software industry uses "systems engineering". You'll
sometimes (not always) see "systems engineering" in the software industry
refer to operating systems, or operating system like stuff (for example, game
engines, certain types of real time application, etc). You'll also see it
called 'systems programming'. In that context, I can understand why the
standard systems engineering role might be considered more 'managementish'.

In most large roles, systems engineers are at least one step removed from the
majority of design. In many ways, he works on an abstraction layer of the
design, but also provides abstraction layers to the other engineers he works
with or DIRECTS.

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tjl
I graduated from a "systems design engineering" program. In it, we had courses
in human factors, mechanical engineering, electrical/computer engineering,
graph theory, software development, and you could branch out from there as you
wanted.

Unfortunately, people seem to think that it means I'm a software developer, in
IT, or something along those lines. It's quite unfortunate as both my Master's
and Ph.D. were more towards mechanical engineering.

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mch82
Unless you're working in the Aerospace & Defense, Healthcare Device, or
Automotive industries this will continue to be a problem for some time.

It's okay to use equivalent language when seeking out jobs. Try looking for
"product design" or "product management" roles that emphasize technical
competency.

Reach out to INCOSE and IISE professional organizations for help. Those
organizations exist to represent your skill set to industry. Challenge them to
improve recruiter and human resources recognition of the term "Systems
Engineer".

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tjl
I didn't know about INCOSE or IISE, so thanks. I've been a member of ASME
since I was presenting at their conferences and submitting to their journals
as a grad student given the material was focused on mechanical (and textile)
engineering. I didn't look for any dedicated systems organizations.

Product Management is what most of our graduates end up doing, but they're
usually doing it in software jobs. That said, we have a number of patent and
IP lawyers come out of our program and a lot of people go into medicine or
biomedical. The latter since we have a dedicated biomedical option as we have
a number of faculty in that area.

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iijj
Related: MIT OpenCourseWare's 2005 Aircraft Systems Engineering is a lecture
series with many of the Space Shuttle's various lead engineers.

[http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-
astronautics/16-8...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-
astronautics/16-885j-aircraft-systems-engineering-fall-2005/video-lectures/)

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maxxxxx
I watched some of them and the people teaching are top notch. I only wish they
showed the slides in the video.

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Animats
Now that's waterfall design. Show that to your scrum master.

Really. This is a manual for waterfall design of large, complex, one-off or
small-quantity systems. Bridges and buildings are designed this way. It's
slow, but it works. Errors in the requirements are really expensive to fix.

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stephen_g
Of course - it's just the nature of the medium. With software you can be be
far more agile because you aren't making extremely expensive physical parts
that take days to months to re-fabricate or modify every time you want to make
a change.

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niroze
A great resource for systems engineering. I love this.

Source: am systems engineer for complex systems that can't go down and are
heavily used by millions... but not as cool as NASA.

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dajohnson89
It baffles me how starkly this contrasts with so much of software development
in practice.

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mch82
I'm curious what the context of the original post is. Is the OP just wanting
to share the SE Handbook?

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efm
Yes. The SE Handbook is about much larger, more complicated, more reliability-
driven projects, than are often discussed here.

