I am an application engineer. In my department, we standardize the computer experience so that anywhere you sit in our firm, each computer will look the same as the one you previously worked on. 

If your hard drive crashes or the computer is destroyed you can get a new one with exactly the same look and feel -- including every applications shortcut, toolbar and any other preference you may have had on the old computer. This includes a Citrix desktop. All those applications that are on your PC need to be repackaged and deployed on a Citrix server, or farm, which are identical multiple Citrix servers. We provide computer security via Group Policy, anti-virus client deployment and Microsoft patch updates.

Updates are vetted in a test environment before they are deployed. The bulk of our work is packaging and deploying applications across the enterprise with Wise and ManageSoft.  So if you visit the training room for Microsoft Office, it will be in their waiting for you. The software deployment is also centrally managed (get the idea!) right from my desk. If someone asks for Visio, I can send it to them within 10 minutes – provided we have the license.Being in charge of applications also means being second-and-third tier support for the kinds of computer problems the helpdesk can't solve. You know those applications very well because you packaged them.

Other good skills to have for this position are VBScripting, which is writing and customizing automated tasks at the command line and more.  It's not necessary, but programming always helps.

The secret about application engineering is getting out. To me, it is the most exciting field in all of IT.  What can be so exciting about the desktop?  Simply put: the future. Like I said earlier, we are deploying applications with ManageSoft.  Microsoft's flavor is SMS.  It uses technologies that started with Windows 2000 and active directory where applications, patches to applications, and upgrades are installed and removed remotely. But this will soon become antiquated by the biggest industry buzzword: virtualization. The application will run on the client computer, but not really be installed on it.  In fact, the operating system won't really be installed on it either.  It will run from the server room on another floor or another building, but will look exactly as if it's installed on the client computer.

Vitalization is in its infancy.  VMWare is the biggest player of virtualization, but the company is known for running multiple versions of Windows or Linux or Unix all on the same box.  It's an amazing thing to see. They are only now beginning to branch into virtualizing applications.  Another big player is Citrix, which has the technology now to deliver your work-based desktop right to your home computer. It's not the Citrix experience where it's another PC with another profile. It's your PC.  Like I said, the technology is in its infancy and the licensing model is only now being built. This is truly the ground floor. This does not mean all those other technologies I mentioned will disappear. They'll just blend right in a future deployment.