Network Administrator

As a Marine Corps 0631 Network Administrator in Occupational Field 06 (Communications), you installed, configured, operated, and defended the Local Area Networks and Wide Area Networks that carry command and control across the MAGTF. The day-to-day was routing and switching configuration, subnetting, VLAN and VPN setup, IPSEC tunnels, traffic monitoring, fault isolation, and end-to-end troubleshooting on tactical and garrison networks. You stood up technical control facilities, ran circuit testing, and kept routers, switches, and transport gear online when a battalion's ability to talk depended on it.

The 0631 pipeline runs through the Marine Corps Communication-Electronics School (MCCES) at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, where Marines learn enterprise networking, Cisco IOS, cybersecurity fundamentals, and the DoD network architecture before posting to communications battalions, MEF information groups, and units across I, II, and III MEF. You worked alongside 0651 Cyber Network Operators and 0671 Data Systems Administrators, and the line between transport, network, and systems work blurred fast in the field.

Civilian employers value 0631s because the work maps almost exactly to commercial enterprise networking. You already configured the same Cisco and Juniper gear, the same routing protocols (OSPF, BGP, EIGRP), and the same security posture that corporate network teams run. The difference is the vocabulary on the resume, not the skill. Many 0631s also hold a security clearance, which makes the defense and federal contracting market open faster than almost any other path. Use the military career crosswalk to see how your communications experience lines up across branches, and read how to break into IT without a degree if you are weighing certs against a degree path.

I did not run networks in the Navy, but after I got out I pivoted into tech sales, and the 0631 background is one of the most underrated launchpads for that move. When you have actually configured the routers, switches, and firewalls a vendor is selling, you can talk to a customer's network team as a peer instead of reading off a slide. That technical credibility is exactly what gets you into the room at companies selling network gear, secure comms, and infrastructure, and it pays better than most 0631s expect. — Brad Tachi, Navy Diver veteran & BMR founder

The direct civilian path for a 0631 is enterprise networking, and the salary data is strong. According to BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2024), Network and Computer Systems Administrators earned a median of $96,800, and Computer Network Architects earned a median of $130,390. Information Security Analysts, a common next step once you add a security cert, earned a median of $124,910, with BLS projecting that occupation among the fastest-growing in the country.

Entry points vary by how much enterprise certification you carry out of service. Computer Network Support Specialists earned a median of $73,340 (BLS May 2024) and are a realistic landing spot if you are building toward a CCNA. Computer Systems Analysts, who sit between the network and the business requirements, earned a median of $103,790. The market rewards Marines who can document specific gear and protocols on the resume, not just "managed communications."

Be honest with yourself about geography and clearance. The highest-paying enterprise network roles cluster around metro tech markets and the DC/Northern Virginia defense corridor, where a clearance is a direct salary multiplier. If you are staying outside those hubs, managed service providers and regional ISPs hire heavily for network operations center and field network roles. Marines from comms-adjacent fields like 0621 Field Radio Operator compete for some of the same transport jobs, and across branches the Army 25B Information Technology Specialist and Air Force 3D0X2 Cyber Systems Operations paths land in the same job pool. To position your experience for these roles, our military resume builder translates tactical network work into enterprise language, or you can build your resume now.

Federal civilian service is one of the fastest paths for a cleared 0631, because the government runs the same DoD networks you already defended. The anchor series is GS-2210 Information Technology Management, which covers network services, systems administration, and information security specialties. Qualification is competency-based rather than degree-gated: at GS-9 and GS-11 you qualify on demonstrated IT experience plus the four standard IT competencies (attention to detail, customer service, oral communication, problem solving), which a 0631's documented network work satisfies directly.

Beyond 2210, telecommunications-heavy 0631s qualify for GS-0391 Telecommunications and GS-0392 General Telecommunications, which value the transport, circuit, and radio-frequency side of the job. Marines who lean toward design and engineering can target GS-0854 Computer Engineering or GS-0855 Electronics Engineering if they hold the engineering coursework those series require, and GS-1550 Computer Science for software-adjacent network automation roles. Program and analysis tracks open through GS-0343 Management and Program Analyst for those moving toward IT project oversight.

Veterans' Preference adds 5 or 10 points to your rated score, and many DoD network billets are filled through Veterans Recruitment Appointment and direct-hire authorities that skip the public competitive process entirely. DISA, the Marine Corps Cyberspace Operations Group, NAVWAR, and dozens of combatant-command J6 shops hire 0631-type skill sets constantly. The Army 25B and Air Force 3D1X2 Cyber Transport Systems communities compete for the same GS-2210 openings, so the resume has to be sharp. A federal resume runs long and detail-dense for a reason, and ours handles the format. Read what a Top Secret clearance is worth in salary, then use the federal resume builder or start your federal resume.

If you are applying to enterprise networking jobs, your terminology already translates. A NOC manager knows what OSPF, a VLAN trunk, and an IPSEC tunnel are. This section is for 0631s targeting careers OUTSIDE network operations, where a hiring manager has never touched a Cisco console and needs the impact in plain business language.

The trap is leaving acronyms and mission jargon on the resume for a non-technical reader. "Administered the MAGTF tactical network" tells a corporate operations or sales hiring manager nothing. The fix is to lead with scale, uptime, and consequence.

• MAGTF / tactical network becomes distributed enterprise network supporting 1,000+ users across multiple sites. Before: "Maintained the battalion tactical network at Twentynine Palms." After: "Sustained a multi-site network serving 1,200 users with 99.9% availability during continuous 24/7 operations."
• Fault isolation / circuit restoral becomes incident response and service restoration. Before: "Conducted end-to-end fault isolation on degraded circuits." After: "Diagnosed and restored critical service outages, cutting mean time to repair through structured troubleshooting."
• Information Assurance / cybersecurity posture becomes risk management and security compliance. Before: "Enforced IA controls on the network." After: "Implemented and audited security controls across networked systems to meet federal compliance standards."

The pattern holds for any non-technical role: name the scale, name the result, drop the acronym. For a deeper list, see 50 military terms translated to civilian language and how to convert your evaluations into resume bullets. Our military resume builder does this translation automatically, or get started here.