[SAGE] System Engineer vs System Administrator (was Resume inflation)

[Trey Harris <trey@eecs.harvard.edu>]

In a message dated Thu, 16 Sep 2004, Jenkins, Steven writes:
> IMO this is a classic career issue.  At some point you may decide that
> you want:
> 	1- to be more technical, and so you become a System Engineer (or
> developer)

What does this *mean*?  I'm sorry to be shrill, but the term "System
Engineer" confuses and in the end annoys me.  (Full disclosure: I've had
both "System(s) Engineer"  and "System(s) Administrator" as a job title.)

Most sites I've been at have either called everyone a "System Engineer" or
everyone a "System Administrator".  Those few sites I'm familiar with that
use both titles seem to fall basically into two groups:

1) "System Engineer" was a term for, or perhaps the next step above,
   "Senior System Administrator"; or

2) "System Administrators" did operations and reactive work, while "System
   Engineers" did automation and proactive work.

(Of course many sites believe that with seniority comes less operations
and more automation, but that merely *tends* to be true in reality--there
are very good uses for junior automations people and senior operations
people.)

I think this is wrapped up with the topic that spawned it.  In this case,
it's job title inflation.  It's not as bad today as the dot-com years when
demanding any job title you wanted and getting it was pretty common.  But
we've still been left with the idea that a "System Engineer" is a more
desirable job title than "System Administrator."

Let me put the question this way: can anyone give me a definition of the
two terms that are:

a) mutually exclusive (or at least less than 50% overlapping);
b) actually would describe how these terms are used in the job market;
c) and would not declare virtually every topic of the Annual System
   Administration Conference (i.e. LISA) to be about System Engineering
   rather than Administration?

If not, it's plain inflation--Engineering sounds more impressive than
Administration.

Trey