It's 2009, and here's a great article that justifies my career choices of Systems Engineer and part time College Professorship. Money magazine and PayScale.com rated the top 50 careers with great pay and growth prospects. Systems Engineer is #1 and College Professor is #3. Nice.
Even better, the Systems Engineer article mentions the INCOSE SEP as a required certification for some jobs. Maybe I'll get more students for the CSEP preparation course I teach.
Only problem is they do place SE under Information Technology. This kind of bugs me to no end. I know IT requires SE but SE is more then IT. During my recent job search I kept getting recruiters asking for a more IT related System Engineering work, i.e. Do you know UNIX or JAVA? How good are your System administration skills in Unix, Linux, and/or Windows platforms? Do you have experience with VMware ESX server, Lab Manager, Virtual Infrastructure Client? Do you have the ability to write basic scripts using shell scripting or Perl?
I got so feed up I created a standard reply:
“Thank you for the info but I’m not really an IT guy or software development guy. I help PMs and their Program Offices with the technical aspects of acquiring new systems and capabilities for DoD. Milestone Documentation, Architecture review, Requirement Tracability, Validation and Verification of requirements, test planning via TEMP development, etc. Look at chapter 4.1 of the Defense Acquisition Guidebook. That will give you a good understanding of what I do. Bottom Line is my strength is in Systems Engineering/Technical Advisory (SETA) work.”
I know it's kind of snippy but it was the best way for me to deal with it.
Well I got to get back to work here at the Best Job in America. OORAH!
