Staff Officer (Cyber Coalition Exercise)

Job Description - Staff Officer (Cyber Coalition Exercise) (260726)

Staff Officer (Cyber Coalition Exercise)-260726

Primary Location

United States of America-Norfolk

NATO Body

Headquarters Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (HQ SACT)

Schedule

Full-time

Application Deadline

16-Jun-2026, 3:29:00 AM

Salary (Pay Basis)

: 10,723.43US Dollar (USD) Monthly

Grade NATO Grade G17

Description

:

Post Context

ACT contributes to preserving the peace, security and territorial integrity of Alliance member states by leading, at Strategic Command level, Warfare Development required to enhance NATO's posture, military structures, forces, capabilities and doctrines.

The Capability Development Directorate (CAPDEV) comprises two Divisions-Requirements and Capabilities. The Directorate supports SACT in his Capabilities Requirement Authority (CRA) role. It is responsible for a holistic through lifecycle Capability Development approach that infuses innovation and transformative efforts that are an integral part of the Warfare Development. This includes responsibilities for elicitation, development, capture and collection, quality review, traceability and visibility of capability requirements.

The Capabilities Division coordinates the development of capabilities from capability planning through acceptance and then disposal with the management entities, NATO Headquarters staff and the NATO Governance Structure. This entails synchronizing horizontally across capabilities to achieve coherent efforts and outcomes.

The Cyberspace Branch provides scientific, technical and operational expertise for the development and continuous improvement of modern and agile Cyberspace capabilities including Cyber Defence and enabling cryptographic infrastructure. The Branch provides services and products through a competency-aligned structure to support appropriate product, programme coordination across DOTMLPFI lines of development throughout the lifecycle. The Branch supports cyber concepts development, capability requirements elicitation, architectures (including cryptographic reference and target architectures) and federated interoperability. This includes leveraging applied science, technology, operations research and horizon scanning. The Branch leads the development of Capability Programme Plans (CPPs) and ensures delivery of programme outcomes by assessing throughout the lifecycle the CSSPR against agreed tolerances. The Branch leads the acceptance testing and documentation of assigned capabilities. The Branch analyses emerging technologies with stakeholders. It ensures military and technical coherence and persistent interoperability.

Within the Cyber Branch the incumbent''s main responsibility is to support the Cyber Coalition Exercise Director and his/her exercise staff in all the activities related to the organization of Cyber Coalition.

Principal Duties:

• Identify level of ambition for annual CC, based on V&S implementation.

• Identify and describe the most likely scenarios and storylines, to propose to the Exercise Group.

• Identify and describe the most likely experiments and concept validation activities, to propose to the experimentation team.

• Document the above in the annual draft exercise specification.

• Act as the PoC for Cyber Coalition concept, scenario, storyline and implementation development activities.

• Attend meetings and ensure that above strategic elements are properly implemented into the exercise.

• Support the Exercise Director in developing the proper participation, audience and partnerships.

• Provide support to Cyber Coalition Exercise Director for development of exercise objectives and training objectives.

• Coordinate development of exercise specifications, exercise plan and final exercise report.

• Provide guidance to the Exercise Group on organizational aspects of future exercise developments.

• Ensure LL requests, planning, creation, collection, staffing and handling in accordance with the NATO LL Process is an integrated part of the Post Exercise Discussion (PXD).

• Represent the Exercise Director on appropriate Cyber Coalition related committees, task force, panels and working groups as directed.

Essential Qualifications / Experience:

• Master's degree or similar national academic qualification in computer science, network security, cyber-security or any related field. Can be substituted with Bachelor Degree and 5 years of experience in relevant field and/or verifiable long time experience in the subject.

• Post-grade education in CIS security and cyberdefence disciplines, as Certified Information Systems security Professional (CISSP), GIAC Security Expert or ISACA Certified information security Manager (CISM).

• Six years'' experience (depending on educational background/degrees) in the organization of military exercises, preferably at operational and/or strategic level including exercise content development, execution and evaluation. Only hands-on experience in exercise development, execution and evaluation will be considered. Participation in exercises out of these functions will not be considered as valid experience.

• Four years'' experience in participation in cyber exercises, preferably operational and military ones (cyber C2, situational awareness, cyber ISR or offensive cyberspace operations), rather than technical (red-on-blue) ones.

• Six years' Cyber and/or CIS experience.

Language

• English - SLP 3333 - (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing)

Desirable Qualifications / Experience:

• General knowledge of the organization and structure of NATO.

• Demonstrable understanding of cyberspace operations.

Attributes/Competencies:

Personal Attributes:

• Ability to work in team environments (both as a contributor and a leader).

• Experience interacting/briefing with/to senior leadership at the OF-5 Officers level.

• Excellent analytical, problem solving and verbal and written communication skills.

Managerial Responsibilities:

• Although the incumbent is not expected to directly manage any HQ staff, he/she will be required to organize teams and their work and activities, being able to influence the work strategy and the expected results.

• Ability to plan, coordinate and synchronize activities will be required with a varied type of internal and external stakeholders, notably in the NICC. Soft skills will be essential.

Professional Contacts:

• Daily and routine professional contact is required at the OF-5 level, both inside and outside the command HQ. Contact with contractors, senior staff and participation in briefings and internal review boards with OF-5 level representation is undertaken regularly. The post will be involved in a wide range of meetings and interactions in which decisions and commitments are required regarding an optimum course of action, interpretation of policy, or assignment of resources.
• The incumbent must have a keen sense of the boundaries of post authority and the direction which superior leadership would adopt in response to an evolving situation.
• The incumbent will be required to work along with national representatives at the level of senior experts and cyber command OF-5 level, involving all sorts of engagement towards negotiation of cooperation, support and formulation of exercise objectives. The post will require to present at workshops, working groups and conferences and respond to unplanned questions in a manner that best represents ACT and NATO.

Contribution To Objectives:

• The incumbent will work in the analysis or research of complete tasks, with recommendations affecting the Cyber Coalition Exercise.

Security Clearance

The successful applicant will be required to apply for and receive a NATO SECRET Security Clearance prior to final confirmation of contract and commencement of employment.

Contract

This position is linked to a specific NATO project and is for a limited duration of 3 (three) years only.

Serving NATO International Civilian staff will be offered a contract in accordance with the NATO Civilian Personnel Regulations. Newly recruited staff will be offered a three year definite duration contract.

Notes for Candidates

The HQ SACT web site gives full details on the eligibility criteria and application processes to be adopted by all candidates. However, candidates should particularly note:

Please answer each of the pre-screening questions completely in English. Expressions such as: "please see attached CV, please see annex, please see enclosed document, etc" are not acceptable; this is a cause of immediate rejection of the application.

Particular attention should be given to Education and Experience section of your application form, which should be populated with details of your career to date and educational achievements and certifications as they relate to your application.

The candidature of NATO redundant staff at grade G17 will be considered with priority.

NATO will not accept any phase of the recruitment and selection prepared, in whole or in part, by means of generative artificial-intelligence (AI) tools, including and without limitation to chatbots, such as Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (Chat GPT), or other language generating tools. NATO reserves the right to screen applications to identify the use of such tools. All applications prepared, in whole or in part, by means of such generative or creative AI applications may be rejected without further consideration at NATO's sole discretion, and NATO reserves the right to take further steps in such cases as appropriate.

NATO is committed to diversity and inclusion, and strives to provide equal access to employment, advancement and retention, independent of gender, age, nationality, ethnic origin, religion or belief, cultural background, sexual orientation, and disability. NATO welcomes applications of nationals from all member Nations, and strongly encourages women to apply

This vacancy will close on 15 June 2025 @ 17:59hrs (EDT)/11:59hrs (CEST).