Also called: Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Technician
Launches, programs, and recovers autonomous underwater vehicles that survey the ocean on their own.
AUV techs plan missions on a laptop, prep torpedo-shaped robots, launch them off a ship, then process the sonar maps they bring back hours later.
Estimate.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Bachelor's degree (4-year), about 4 years after high school. Engineering, electronics, or ocean science degree.
Ways in: 4-year college, 2-year college, On-the-job training. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Ocean Engineering, Electronics Technology, Marine Science.
Growing faster than average. Growing with defense and survey work.
Low risk in 5 years, medium in 10. Vehicles get more autonomous, so the job shifts to mission planning, launch-recovery and data work; one operator runs more robots.
Classes: AP Physics, AP Computer Science, Earth science.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.