Evolution of a software engineer in a SoS system engineering world

Many U.S. defense programs and commercial industries (hereafter referred to simply as ´programs´) have difficulty in fielding and sustaining systems in a timely and cost-efficient manner. As software assumes an ever-increasing and important role in the engineering of systems, not only do these programs struggle to employ good software engineering practices, but the dialog between systems engineers and software engineers starts later in the life cycle than it should. Although these difficulties are faced by single, stand-alone systems, such systems are no longer the norm. System and software engineers are increasingly faced with the challenges of systems of systems (SoS).