Career Path — System Engineer & Software Engineer — Comparison

The nature of software indicates the similarities and differences in how engineers and systems engineers apply these concepts and use common terminology. It also describes the nature relationship between software engineering and system engineering.

1. System Engineer

A person who deals with the overall management of engineering projects (a product, solution, or service offering) during their life cycle and focuses more on physical aspects. It means that the projects can include the solution architecture, either enhancing or extending the solution, writing proper documentation about systems analysis or requirement analysis (what to build, how to build, and why to build), writing user manuals, developing employee training to adapt the designed system, integrating the solution (do a feasibility study, construction plan, usability, and the fitness into user requirements) contributing to the product management plan. A system is built by any means and consists of anything rather than software tools only. A system may be made of software or may not be.

Joke — My boss always proposes to have software portals to solve the issue related to information mismatch or delay. However, the reality is complex because his employees might not understand the purpose of doing this. It needs some time to train them to adapt to the new culture with systems.

2. Software Engineer

A person who deals with software/application design and development. They follow a systematic and disciplined approach for software design, development, deployment, and maintenance of software applications. They are generally concerned with all aspects of software development, infrastructure, control, applications, and databases in the system. Instead of learning knowledge from other engineering disciplines, software engineers are concerned about the software itself (what to prepare, how software is built, which programming language is to be used, how the user interaction/interfaces are defined). A software engineer must have several years’ experience in specific programming languages, such as C#, C++, Java, or Visual Basic .Net Programming languages depending on the company.

The similarities

1. Engage in analysis and design

2. Component development & Integration

3. Verification and validation

4. Life cycle sustainment

5. Work with other specialists (user interface, database, computation, and communication specialists)

6. Adapt existing components

The differences

1. Education backgrounds ( traditional engineering disciplines and computing disciplines)

2. Different problem-solving methodology

3. System engineering can relate to risk analysis, reliability, logistics, the solution (software, culture, machine, control, or anything)

4. System engineers must be good communicator, which is able to ask accurate & pertinent questions and comprehend the answers

In short, system engineering is a very difficult and challenging job. You are responsible for supervising yourself because your superior doesn’t know the actual progression in a year and you must work across nearly all company boundaries to understand all the scenario cases. You have to store and document your solution design properly. Sometimes, you also work as a project engineer and manager all at the same time. Software engineering is not that easy as well. They don’t have to learn and understand other engineering disciplines to complete their tasks.

Generally speaking, software engineering pays is better at most companies. It depends on the current status of your country. In developed countries, software engineering is much better in the long term. In developing countries, system engineering is much better in the long run because you grow with your companies because of your experience or your own value appreciating. The developed countries have many complex systems and prefer to hire system implementers.

Disclaimer: it is my opinion. You read and you make your own decision.

References

1. https://www.quora.com/Which-career-path-is-better-for-long-term-a-systems-engineer-or-a-software-engineer

2. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-a-system-engineer-and-a-software-engineer

3. https://www.roberthalf.com/blog/salaries-and-skills/what-it-takes-to-be-a-software-engineer-or-systems-engineer

4.https://www.sebokwiki.org/wiki/Systems_Engineering_and_Software_Engineering

5. https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-i-went-from-newbie-to-software-engineer-in-9-months-while-working-full-time-460bd8485847/

6. https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2014/10/08/what-the-top-1-of-software-engineers-do-that-the-other-99-do-not/?sh=5f7b615a7637

7. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/difference-between-system-engineer-and-software-engineer/?ref=lbp

8. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/systems-engineer-vs-software-engineers

9. https://www.chtips.com/computer-fundamentals/differences-between-software-engineering-and-system-engineering/

10. https://er.yuvayana.org/difference-between-software-engineering-and-system-engineering/