Tactical Automated Fire Control Systems Specialist

“You'll operate AFATDS — the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System — the digital backbone that connects every fire support element across the battlefield. When fires are called, you're the system operator who processes the mission, deconflicts the airspace, and gets rounds on target faster than any analog method could. The systems experience and fire support coordination knowledge opens doors to defense contractor positions supporting artillery digital systems — a niche where military-trained operators command premium pay.”

You will enter data into AFATDS — the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System — which is a program that looks like it was designed by someone who had heard of user interfaces but never seen one. Your job is to process fire missions digitally, coordinate with cannons and rockets through encrypted digital networks, and maintain the data architecture that keeps artillery from shooting the wrong things. The system will crash. It will crash at the moment when the mission is most critical, and you will reboot it with the calm of someone who has rebooted it four hundred times before because you have. Field artillery life applies: you live near guns that are extremely loud, your sleep is tied to the fires mission, and the field is where you actually earn your pay. The civilian translation is thin compared to other signal/data MOSs — AFATDS skills don't map neatly to commercial systems. What does transfer is your clearance, your ability to operate under pressure with complex systems, and your understanding of networked fire control architecture, which defense contractors find very interesting.