Wikipedia has an article on it:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_engineering
From reading the article, systems engineering is very similar to the tasks handled in a software engineering project:
- you'd be assigned to a project until completion
- the project may have release cycles
- during each release cycle you'd identify the primary requirements, plan a solution, review it with others and then proceed to implement it
- other engineers would do the same
- a lead engineer would've developed a planning schedule showing when each component would be dropped in place
- each component would be dependent on other components being put in place
- the plan would allow for slippage in case some component was late
- other times the plan may have to be reworked due to some problem like hardware or software not in place or still back ordered
- a dedicated systems test team would be continuously testing system as it's put together via unit test, functional tests and finally system level tests
- the tests to run would've been designed while other components were being built to be ready when they are
- criteria would be established to manage defects uncovered by the test team
- the criteria would say something like no severity 1 defects allowed, limited number of severity 2 defects with workarounds listed in a readme file...
- as things are almost completed a lockdown of changes is put in effect where the lead engineer under advisement of his team what to fix and what not fix in order to maintain the stability of the product as we enter the final stage
- once all components are in place, system tests have been completed and the shipping criteria met then the team could announce a release
- finally a postmortem review of what worked and what didn't in preparation for the next cycle of release
- and the tasks repeat...