Inviting Discussion on "Dealing with Complexity"

As a former systems engineer for a civilian avionics manufacturer, we understood our position to be a "spanning" function, in which one analysed all the impacts of design decisions rather than localized functions.

This is similar (I think) to the Computer Science definition.

The function was generally provided by more senior engineers with area expertise; and was facilitated by the requirements from the airspace, the operations, the hardware, the box certification, HIRF, lightning, latency, etc being driven and decomposed to the lowest level of design. So once you had a few years in, you began to know the aircraft as a single complexity whose lowest functions impacted the ability to meet requirements at the highest levels.

Having recently joined the Military Industrial complex, I find new terminology and concepts that give me pause, and I invite others comments.

I find the DOD and the manufacturer's using the term 'systems of systems', and Systems Engineering is it's own field of engineering.

In my lengthy background working with some very complex systems, we grew these people internally. While never stated, every engineer was on track toward systems engineer while working an area of speciality.

Now I find organizations and individuals who never worked in any speciality being recruited straight into "Systems Engineering", and upper level degrees available to the Bachelor holder without any job experience.

Having watched these people struggle with requirements decomposition devoid of technical knowledge, costing exercises absent experience, trade studies and decisions coming to silly conclusions; I have my doubts with this industry approach.

The question I suppose; does this reflect others experience, and who can share more successful experiences and approaches?

Looking forward to responses.

Emmett