The Air Force National Capital Region Information Technology Services program, known as AFNCR ITS-2, delivers, operates, and protects the enterprise IT and communications infrastructure supporting senior Air Force, Department of Defense, and national command authorities throughout the National Capital Region. The program sustains critical classified and unclassified networks and helps ensure that mission-essential communications remain available, secure, and resilient around the clock.
ABSC is seeking an
Operations Watch Specialist to join the 24/7/365 Cyber Support Center Operations Watch team at Joint Base Andrews. The Operations Watch Specialist will monitor the health and availability of NIPRNet and SIPRNet services, identify and assess emerging incidents, coordinate service-restoration activities, and maintain enterprise situational awareness across the AFNCR.
This position serves as a critical line of defense against network disruptions and mission-impacting events. The successful candidate will combine network-monitoring experience, technical troubleshooting, incident-management discipline, and clear customer communication to help maintain zero-fail communications for senior Government and military leaders.
Work Location: Full-time onsite at Joint Base Andrews, with ad-hoc telework based on mission requirements and prior client approval.
Schedule: 6:00 a.m.-2:30 p.m., Sunday through Thursday. The Operations Watch is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Security Clearance: Active DoD Secret clearance with the willingness/ability to potentially obtain a Top Secret clearance in the future.
ResponsibilitiesAs the Operations Watch Specialist, you will:
- Monitor and manage the operational status, availability, and performance of AFNCR wide-area network services.
- Maintain continuous situational awareness across classified and unclassified network environments, including NIPRNet and SIPRNet.
- Monitor network and enterprise-system health using Cisco Prime, SolarWinds, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, and other approved monitoring and automation tools.
- Review network alerts, system events, alarms, and performance indicators to determine operational impact, severity, and urgency.
- Identify and triage potential outages, service degradation, connectivity problems, and other mission-impacting events.
- Receive and respond to customer calls regarding network connectivity and enterprise service issues.
- Perform incident-management, service-restoration, and proactive problem-management activities.
- Coordinate immediate incident response with the Communications Focal Point, Government leadership, mission partners, long-haul telecommunications carriers, local technicians, and technical resolution teams.
- Manage active incidents from initial identification through escalation, restoration, documentation, and closure.
- Resolve issues within the Operations Watch team's level of responsibility and escalate incidents requiring advanced troubleshooting to the appropriate Tier 3 support teams.
- Conduct advanced log and event analysis to support incident investigation, threat identification, proactive threat hunting, and remediation.
- Identify recurring problems, emerging trends, and opportunities to improve network availability and operational response.
- Maintain accurate incident records, operational logs, technical findings, troubleshooting actions, escalation details, status updates, and final resolution information.
- Provide clear and timely operational updates to customers, Government leadership, technical teams, and other stakeholders.
- Develop and maintain strong technical-support, incident-triage, and service-restoration documentation.
- Support continuous improvement of monitoring tools, alert thresholds, dashboards, operating procedures, and watch processes.
- Remain organized and decisive while managing multiple alerts, incidents, customer requests, and operational priorities.
- Support continuity of operations during outages, maintenance events, emergencies, and other mission-impacting situations.
- Perform effectively within a live 24/7/365 network operations environment.
Required Qualifications- Current DoD 8140/8570 IAT Level II certification, such as CompTIA Security+ CE, CySA+, GSEC, SSCP, or another approved certification.
- Bachelor's degree and relevant network or operations-center experience. Candidates must satisfy the applicable contract labor-category requirements, which identify five to seven years of general experience and at least two years of directly related technical experience.
- A master's degree may be accepted as an education and experience substitution in accordance with the contract labor category.
- Candidates without a degree must have at least six years of intensive and progressive experience demonstrating the required proficiency.
- At least two years of experience working with network switches and routers.
- Experience supporting network operations, enterprise monitoring, incident response, service restoration, or a comparable operational environment.
- Experience using Cisco Prime or another enterprise network-monitoring platform.
- Experience using SolarWinds, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, or comparable tools to monitor enterprise services across multiple technologies and platforms.
- Knowledge of wide-area networks, network connectivity, enterprise infrastructure, system availability, and service dependencies.
- Experience reviewing network alerts, logs, and system events and determining their impact, severity, and urgency.
- Experience troubleshooting enterprise IT incidents and recommending appropriate restoration or corrective actions.
- Ability to coordinate technical response activities across customers, technicians, carriers, mission partners, and advanced support teams.
- Strong technical-writing skills, including the ability to produce clear incident, triage, troubleshooting, escalation, and resolution documentation.
- Strong verbal communication skills and the ability to provide concise operational updates during active incidents.
- Ability to remain calm, organized, and responsive while working in a high-tempo, mission-critical environment.
- Ability to work full-time onsite at Joint Base Andrews.
- Ability to support the Sunday-through-Thursday, 6:00 a.m.-2:30 p.m. schedule.
- Ability to work within a continuously staffed 24/7/365 operation.
Desired QualificationsYou will wow us even more if you have some of these qualifications:
- Current Cisco Certified Support Technician, CCENT, CCNA, or higher Cisco certification.
- Experience configuring or tuning SolarWinds, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, Cisco Prime, or comparable monitoring tools.
- Experience working with IT Service Management tools, especially BMC Remedy.
- Experience supporting Department of Defense, Department of the Air Force, or other Federal Government network operations.
- Experience working within a military command-and-control, network operations center, communications focal point, or cyber support center environment.
- Experience monitoring or supporting both NIPRNet and SIPRNet services.
- Experience coordinating with telecommunications carriers and geographically distributed technical teams.
- Experience supporting senior Government or military leadership and other high-visibility mission customers.
- Familiarity with proactive threat hunting, security-event analysis, cybersecurity incident response, or operational risk identification.
- Experience developing operational dashboards, watch procedures, escalation matrices, knowledge articles, or incident-response playbooks.
Salary and CompensationThe salary range for this position is $85,000 - $128,000 annually. Salary is commensurate with education, experience, knowledge, skills, abilities, and qualifications. The anticipated salary range for this requisition will be determined based on the applicable contract labor category and position requirements. The actual salary offered will depend on the position's responsibilities, relevant education and certifications, years and depth of experience, specialized technical expertise, security clearance, internal equity, contractual labor-category requirements, applicable market data, and applicable laws or requirements.
Some of our benefits include:- Generous PTO plus 11 Federal Holidays
- Retirement Planning - 401k Fully Vested with Match
- Annual Health and Wellness Allowance - buy an Apple Watch, a treadmill, or hit the gym on us
- Career Development - Annual Funds to spend on Education and Training or AI subscriptions
- Volunteer Time Off - Annually, all employees can spend 8 hours directly supporting a charity of choice
- Charitable Match - ABSC matches an employee's donation to a qualifying charity
- Referral Program - We pay for internal and external referrals!
- LOV Awards - Earn bonus awards throughout the year from our Living Our Values awards program
Apply to join our team today! We are always looking to grow our team-if you know someone who is seeking a new career opportunity, please share this job opening with them. ABSC offers generous external referral bonuses. You don't need to be an employee to benefit from our Referral Program.
ABSC is a proud V3, Virginia Values Vets, member, which recognizes our commitment to hiring Veterans. If you are a veteran, please be sure to include that in your application.
