Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field with an emphasis on synthesizing an understanding of a system by integrating all the ideas across the various disciplines involved. That is, construction a model of the system (for the engineer themselves and the people they work for and the people actually building the system and the people who will be using and maintaining the system). It's not just requirements and specs, but actually communicating and coordinating with real specialists because the SE will have a holistic view of the system, but won't be an expert in each of: astrodynamics, materials engineering, computer engineering (as in the digital logic part), mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, software, aerodynamics, RF engineering, power engineering, and so on.
The role of the systems engineer is to manage all this complexity and construct a sound model of the system(s) in question that can be communicated to others and used in development. Both of the final system and of the many intermediary prototypes and "spikes" (to borrow the XP term) needed to fully understand the system.
Naur's Programming as Theory Building is a useful software-centric take on this topic: https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf (I tried to submit it, but apparently another submission a few months back made it a dupe).
The role of the systems engineer is to manage all this complexity and construct a sound model of the system(s) in question that can be communicated to others and used in development. Both of the final system and of the many intermediary prototypes and "spikes" (to borrow the XP term) needed to fully understand the system.
Naur's Programming as Theory Building is a useful software-centric take on this topic: https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf (I tried to submit it, but apparently another submission a few months back made it a dupe).