Systems Engineers v Field Service Engineers

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The company I work for has four Systems Engineers (me being one) and around fourteen Field Service Engineers.

I was wondering who the good people of Cert Forums thought where more technical. An overview of each job is below.

System Engineer

Mainly office based, however can go to site if needed. Providing Third Line Support, ensuring that all 'tickets' are completed. Anything which cannot be done Remotely is passed onto a Field Service Engineer to fix.

- Diagnose all issues and inform Field Service Engineers what work needs to be undertaken.
- Any issues that arise are dealt with by Systems Engineers, Exchange, Active Directory, Backup, Routing, VPN's, Site Links, Citrix, Group Policy etc.
- Do not normally get involved with any hardware issues.
- Expected to close around 15 calls a day.
- Resolve issues for call clients.

Field Service Engineers

Mainly field based, however can work on the Systems Desk if needed. Providing Third Line Support, ensuring that all tickets are completed.

- Installation, maintenance, upgrading of hardware.
- Complete any issues that cannot be resolved remotely which can be Exchange, Active Directory, Backup, Routing, VPN's, Site Links, Citrix, Group Policy etc.
- Expected to close around 3 calls a day
- Only work on certain client sites.

As you can see, we do pretty much the same stuff, however, the Systems Engineers deal with a much larger client base than the Field Service Engineers.

 

Sounds like it's the same job really, just with two teams specialising in different aspects of it. You said the FSEs can cover the SEs job if need be, if you SEs can cover the FSEs job then I really can't see much difference as regards "more technical".

 

Yes we could cover each other.

I would say that Systems Engineers are more technical with Software and Field Service Engineers are more technical with Hardware.

 

Looks like almost the same job except the field guys are limited to number of fixes due to travel.
Out of the two, i would prefer a field role, I prefer meeting customers face to face than over the phone.