Internal reference: CYB. The Coast Guard does not publish a short code for this career field.
Build, secure, and defend Coast Guard cyberspace resources. Manage cybersecurity operations and information technology systems.
Officer - College Degree Required, IT/CS Background
Catalog listing, not a contract offer. Confirm with a recruiter.
Cyber Officers lead the teams that defend Coast Guard networks and support the service's responsibility for cyber risk in the marine transportation system. Your time splits between operational oversight, planning, resourcing, and translating technical findings for commanders and outside agencies. You review incident reporting, set priorities for hunt and defense work, and represent your unit in coordination that reaches across the Department of Homeland Security and beyond. Because ports, terminals, and vessels on American waterways are the terrain being protected, the mission is domestic critical infrastructure rather than an overseas campaign. A commission through the Academy, Officer Candidate School, or direct commission is the entry point, and technical degrees are common.
You learn to run a cyber organization, which means manning, training readiness, tool acquisition, and defending a budget in front of people who control it. Operational planning teaches you to turn a vague threat picture into tasked, measurable defensive work. You develop the rare ability to explain technical risk to non technical decision makers without distorting it. Policy and authorities become part of your vocabulary, including what a federal agency may and may not do on private networks. Personnel leadership, formal evaluations, and mentoring technical specialists who could earn more elsewhere round out the role.
Leading experts who know more than you do about their specialty teaches a useful humility and sharper questioning. You build comfort with ambiguity, since cyber incidents rarely resolve into clean certainty and often close with a probable answer instead of a proven one. The job develops steady judgment about when to escalate an incident and when to let a team keep working. You learn to shield your people from organizational noise and competing demands so they can concentrate on the actual threat. Discretion and integrity matter more in this role than in almost any other staff job in the service.
Security leadership is the natural destination, and few candidates arrive with both technical credibility and command experience. Veterans move into security operations management, government cyber programs, consulting, and infrastructure protection at utilities, ports, and energy companies. A security clearance plus documented federal incident experience makes contractor and agency hiring straightforward rather than a long uphill search. Some officers pursue a technical masters or an MBA and move toward chief information security officer tracks. The interagency background is itself a selling point for firms that have to work with regulators and report incidents to them.
Your morning opens in the network operations center checking overnight security alerts and the health of Coast Guard IT systems on your monitoring dashboards. You spend the day hardening networks, investigating suspicious traffic, and coordinating with your cyber team to patch vulnerabilities before they become incidents. Between operations you brief leadership on the threat posture, write incident reports, and plan defensive measures for the systems that keep the fleet connected.
No suitable exact-MOS or related career-field video has been verified for this page yet. No unrelated video or search-results page is substituted.
$77,814–$144,392
2026 basic pay only; the same grade and service time pay the same across jobs. Promotions are assumed, not promised. Excludes allowances, bonuses and special pays.
For Coast Guard CYB Cyber Officer, official service-wide guidance and any exact feeder-list matches are distinguished below from unverified specialty-specific requirements. Ranks are not separate jobs, and these possibilities are not guaranteed promotions or available contracts.
Examples of higher service ranks
These are service-wide rank names, not a verified promotion ladder for this specialty. Examples are not exhaustive; appointments sharing a pay grade are not additional promotion steps.
Official military rank referenceThe October 2026 Reserve Servicewide Examination announcement makes advancement conditional on rating/pay-grade qualifications and command recommendation, with rating-specific examination exceptions. Its scope is Reserve E-5 through E-7, not every grade or active-duty cycle. It does not establish a promotion ceiling for this listing.
Coast Guard October 2026 Reserve advancement examinationService-level application reference—not a verified next step for this listing
Officer Candidate School is a separate competitive commissioning pathway open to Coast Guard enlisted members. This general program does not establish individual eligibility or a transfer to any particular officer specialty. Warrant appointments have separate requirements; no rating-to-warrant feeder match is asserted here.
Coast Guard Officer Candidate SchoolSpecialty-specific advancement, senior assignments, and eligibility for a different personnel category have not been verified for this listing. No feeder eligibility or automatic transition to another specialty is implied.
Advancement depends on current service rules, performance, required education, qualifications, selection, and authorized positions—not simply years served. Confirm current requirements with an official recruiter or career counselor.
Related military jobs below are for exploration, not promised progression or confirmed transfer paths.
Sources reviewed 2026-10-03. This is a partial evidence review, not verification of every advancement route for this specialty. Source retrieval dates do not replace policy effective dates.
Career-field mappings, not automatic qualifications. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2024 national medians). O*NET links explain each occupation; military experience does not guarantee a job or salary.
Build, secure, and defend Coast Guard cyberspace resources. Manage cybersecurity operations and information technology systems.
Cyber Officers lead the teams that defend Coast Guard networks and support the service's responsibility for cyber risk in the marine transportation system. Your time splits between operational oversight, planning, resourcing, and translating technical findings for commanders and outside agencies. You review incident reporting, set priorities for hunt and defense work, and represent your unit in coordination that reaches across the Department of Homeland Security and beyond. Because ports, terminals, and vessels on American waterways are the terrain being protected, the mission is domestic critical infrastructure rather than an overseas campaign. A commission through the Academy, Officer Candidate School, or direct commission is the entry point, and technical degrees are common.
You learn to run a cyber organization, which means manning, training readiness, tool acquisition, and defending a budget in front of people who control it. Operational planning teaches you to turn a vague threat picture into tasked, measurable defensive work. You develop the rare ability to explain technical risk to non technical decision makers without distorting it. Policy and authorities become part of your vocabulary, including what a federal agency may and may not do on private networks. Personnel leadership, formal evaluations, and mentoring technical specialists who could earn more elsewhere round out the role.
Security leadership is the natural destination, and few candidates arrive with both technical credibility and command experience. Veterans move into security operations management, government cyber programs, consulting, and infrastructure protection at utilities, ports, and energy companies. A security clearance plus documented federal incident experience makes contractor and agency hiring straightforward rather than a long uphill search. Some officers pursue a technical masters or an MBA and move toward chief information security officer tracks. The interagency background is itself a selling point for firms that have to work with regulators and report incidents to them.
Officer - College Degree Required, IT/CS Background. This is the catalog's listed requirement, not an individual eligibility decision. Confirm the current standard and any exceptions with the service.
A civilian can pursue this specialty through an officer accession path, subject to eligibility and assignment. Confirm the current status of this specific classification with an official recruiter.
Catalog sources consulted: 2026-09-26. This is not an entry-by-entry verification date. No record-specific verification date is recorded. Occupation audit evidence reviewed: 2026-09-26; this does not re-verify every requirement.
The service documents this career field but does not publish this short code for it; the code shown here is an internal catalog reference.
Official branch occupation evidence
Coast Guard officer engineering and C5I specialties · reviewed 2026-09-26
Provisional. Catalog evidence is not an inventory of open contracts.
The service documents this career field but does not publish this short code for it; the code shown here is an internal catalog reference.
We have not been able to confirm this exact code in a current official classification document. The occupation is documented, but the code may differ, may have been reorganized, or may be specific to one program. Confirm with an official recruiter before relying on it.
No dated public inventory confirmed a currently open recruiting contract for this role. This does not mean there are no openings. Confirm current eligibility and offers with an official recruiter.
Deployment likelihood: Lower*
* Estimated. Rank progression and specialty-pay eligibility are illustrative assumptions. Deployment likelihood, when shown, is inferred from similar specialties in the branch and career field, not a published specialty deployment rate.
Descriptions may change. No military role is free from risk of injury or death, including non-combat work. Catalog review dates do not establish current openings or re-verification of every requirement.
Recruiting signals reflect what each branch published on the dates shown. They are not offers, and they do not mean a contract is open for you. Eligibility depends on your ASVAB scores, medical qualification, security clearance eligibility, and ship date. Confirm everything with an official recruiter. See our Disclaimer and Terms.