I thought this was going to be about system engineering, but it's just about web scale distributed computing. Disappointing, because I'm digging into systems engineering at the moment and got a bunch of books on it for Christmas, plus thumbing through the SEBoK wiki [1] and associated content.
Honestly I think it's a bit silly that such a broad term as "system" is often used to describe software and hardware administration. Reality is made of layered and networked systems so it feels odd to me to call somebody who manages Linux servers a "system administrator".
Sure thing (though it was my lovely wife that bought them, not me!):
- Systems Engineering Demystified by Jon Holt
- Essential Architecture and Principles of Systems Engineering by C. E. Dickerson & Siyuan Ji
- System Design & Management: An Introduction to Systems Engineering by Bob Parkinson
On a somewhat related note I also got Difference & Repetition by Deleuze and Process and Reality by Alfred North Whitehead, but they're more philosophical than practical.
1: https://www.sebokwiki.org/wiki/Guide_to_the_Systems_Engineer...