Hi there, I am a systems engineer with more than 15 years of experience in the wireless communications industry. My plan is to share in this blog the lessons I learned throughout my career.

Systems engineering is the art of defining the interactions of a module within a system such that all the modules in said system work end-to-end harmoniously.

The principal method for defining these interactions are requirements. Requirements are atomic and testable statements that must be implemented by the module in question. Other important tools at the disposition of the systems engineer are the architecture description, call flows, flow charts, and use cases.

A factotum systems engineer may design a system behavior, simulate it, file patents to protect any new ideas, identify standards changes or product requirements changes, support the implementation of these changes (in standards or at product level), write the systems design document, support the software team in the implementation, review the software design from the software team, review the test plan from the test team, and finally go over the functional, and performance test reports for final validation.

I have been lucky to have worked in all the areas described above. I have always been a very technical systems engineer. My one big weakness is the lack of political awareness. A great systems engineer builds coalitions to push his or her vision of the product. In my case, I have always tried to push my agenda on a purely technical basis, so I do not consider myself a great systems engineer. However, in this case, good is more fun than great, so I’ll concentrate on these prosaic aspects of my craft.