Successful NASA projects are a complex balancing act of meeting scientific and technical requirements, while managing schedule, cost, and risk. In a Virtual Project Management Challenge (VPMC), we learned that highly effective program manager share key habits—habits that anyone can develop to improve their performance. In this follow up to that session, we turn our focus to systems engineers. Specifically, "What are the qualities of an effective systems engineer?" In addition to looking at the research, we asked our viewers. Hundreds of VPMC viewers responded, ranking the characteristics of effective systems engineers. In this session of the VPMC, we will present the top seven characteristics of effective systems engineers as identified by our viewer poll. For each characteristic, a NASA systems engineer will illustrate how they successfully applied that characteristic to their project work. In addition to describing the characteristic in action, each presenter will provide advice on how others might develop their project management competencies. Please note: presenters for this VPMC will appear via pre-recorded interviews, so there will not be a question and answer session.