Smart Marine Consultant (1/4): What Does This Job Actually Mean?
"So what exactly do you do?"
I've been asked this question hundreds of times — by shipyard engineers, by shipping company executives, by my own family at dinner.
My answer has never been short. And that's the whole point.
The Job That Doesn't Have a Job Title (Yet)
When someone asks what I do, I could say "maritime consultant." But that tells you nothing. Maritime consultants help with flag state compliance, crew manning, insurance surveys, port operations — the list is endless.
I could say "cybersecurity consultant." But that conjures images of someone in a dark room staring at code. That's not it either.
The closest description I've found:
A Smart Marine Consultant helps ships, shipyards, and shipping companies navigate the intersection of operational technology, cybersecurity, and digital transformation — and actually makes it work on the ground.
The keyword is actually. Not in a PowerPoint. Not in a gap analysis report. On the vessel. In the shipyard. In the meeting room where the shipowner is being told by three different vendors that their product is "fully IACS E26/E27 compliant" — and someone needs to ask the right questions. That someone is me.
Why This Job Is Hard to Explain
Maritime is one of the oldest industries on the planet. The people in it speak in LOA, deadweight tonnage, and draft marks. They trust experience over credentials, and sea time over certificates.
Cybersecurity is one of the newest disciplines. It speaks in threat vectors, CVEs, and zero-trust architecture.
Smart ship technology sits awkwardly between both worlds — pulling in ECDIS, VSAT, OT networks, automation systems, and now AI — while the people responsible for these systems often come from either the nautical side or the IT side, rarely both.
A Smart Marine Consultant lives in that gap. The job requires understanding:
Why a Chief Engineer mistrusts any software update that wasn't cleared by the equipment manufacturer
Why an IT manager from a shipping company doesn't know what a SCADA system is
Why a shipyard's cybersecurity deliverable under IACS UR E26 is stuck — not because of technical complexity, but because no one agreed on who owns the document
Why "network segmentation" means something completely different to the OT engineer on the bridge deck versus the network architect in the shore office
The job is translation. Technical, organizational, and cultural translation.
What IACS UR E26/E27 Changed
Before July 2024, cybersecurity on ships was largely voluntary. IMO MSC.428(98) required cyber risk to be inside the Safety Management System, but enforcement was inconsistent and auditable evidence was thin.
Then IACS UR E26 and E27 arrived — mandatory for all newbuilds contracted from 1 July 2024.
Suddenly, shipyards needed to produce cybersecurity deliverables they had never made before. Shipowners needed to define security policies for systems they'd never classified. Equipment suppliers needed Type Approval documentation that most of them had no process to generate.
And everyone needed someone who could stand in the middle of this — understand the regulation, understand the technology, understand the commercial pressures — and make decisions that actually move the project forward. That's the moment "Smart Marine Consultant" became a real job title, whether the industry had named it yet or not.
What I Actually Do Day to Day
No two weeks look the same. But the recurring patterns are:
Working alongside the CRSI (Cyber Resilience System Integrator) to ensure that the Computer-Based System (CBS) inventory is accurate, that security zones are logically defined, and that the cybersecurity deliverables align with what the class surveyor will actually verify — not just what looks good on paper.
Translating regulatory requirements into procurement language. When a shipowner is evaluating three OT monitoring vendors, I help them ask the questions that matter: Does this system generate the evidence needed for Annual Survey? Can it operate within the bandwidth constraints of a VSAT connection at sea? Does the vendor understand the difference between IT and OT patching cycles?
Helping manufacturers understand what IACS UR E27 Type Approval actually requires of their product documentation — and why a software update policy isn't just a checkbox but a contractual commitment they'll be held to for the vessel's entire lifecycle.
Sitting in meetings where the shipyard, the shipowner, the class society, and the cybersecurity vendor all have different interpretations of the same regulation — and finding the path forward that doesn't derail the delivery schedule.
The One Thing No One Tells You
Here's what they don't put in job descriptions:
The biggest barrier to maritime cybersecurity isn't technology. It's organizational.
The OT system on a vessel is often maintained by the manufacturer under a service contract. The network is managed by a separate IT provider. The SMS is owned by the DPA ashore. The CRSI role sits in the shipyard. The class surveyor checks compliance against a framework that was written before most of these systems existed.
Nobody owns the full picture. And nobody is explicitly responsible for making all these pieces work together.
A Smart Marine Consultant doesn't just bring technical knowledge. They bring the discipline to map those ownership boundaries, surface the conflicts early, and push for decisions before they become crises.
Working systems, not reports.
Who Should Read This Series
This series is for:
Engineers and consultants moving from IT/OT cybersecurity into the maritime sector
Shipyard project teams trying to understand what IACS E26/E27 means for their workflows
Shipping company technical superintendents who are being asked about cybersecurity compliance for the first time
Anyone curious about what it actually looks like to work at the intersection of ships, software, and security
It is not a regulatory summary. There are plenty of those. This is a practitioner's field record — what I see, what I solve, and what still keeps me up at night.
The job exists at the intersection of maritime operations, cybersecurity, and OT reality. Translation — technical, organizational, and cultural — is the core skill.
IACS UR E26/E27 (July 2024 newbuilds) made this role practically mandatory — even if the industry hasn't settled on a title yet.
The biggest barrier isn't technical — it's organizational. Ownership boundaries must be mapped and decisions pushed before they become crises.
Working systems, not reports. That's the measure of success in this role.
Comments
Post a Comment