What are the daily duties of a 17C? Do they involve pentesting, malware analysis, and programming with Python and C++?

My information is dated and mostly Air Force centric. However, I would imagine you could potentially be placed within the Cyber Protection Teams (Defense) or potentially offensive cyber depending on your creds and mastery of skills. I spent my career mostly on the defensive side and this is where most cyber ops folks go. If placed within the cyber protection teams, it will consist of a high ops temp of missions that could include threat hunting, or simply traffic analysis.

But again, my knowledge is dated (left the CPTs in 2019) and while I did work with the other services, most of my time was within Air Force CPTs in my last five years of cyber ops. Should you go to the CPTs, I recommend concentrating on forensics analysis (network and host). Start with Windows (it is a Widows world after all) but don't be afraid to branch out into learning more about cloud environments. The military has investments in each of the big three (AWS, Azure, GCP) so learning about any or all of them is a good thing. I can't speak much about the offensive roles, as most of what I know is classified, and I also never really got to learn the career path in that area. That said, I did point out that the services need to send some of them back into defensive operations to provide a more robust knowledge base on what our enemies could be doing as we hunt for them.

Most of all, never stop learning, always find work, and don't be the guy who thinks he knows everything, because you don't. There will always be others who know more about other things and this career field will continue to evolve. Finally, trust the higher ranking cyber operators (those that have actually been on keyboard), regardless of whether their technical knowledge is getting dated as a result of this ever evolving world. They know how things work and many other aspects about cyber ops that you may not yet realize yet.

Even though I was an officer, I started out with the Air Force Red Team, back when it was all officers running the operational aspects of the unit in the late 90s. In that 3 year assignment, I successfully penetrated over 30 AF and DoD networks, all over the world back when they were not enterprises and run by the base's communications units. So, I did my time and later returned to my technical roots after I retired (joined AF Civil Service for 5 years as a cyber defense manager and threat hunter). I've been in a lot of spaces, with regards to cyber roles, but I can proudly say I've not only been on keyboard, but I was highly successful as an operator. Cyber ops is a highly technical and mental discipline requiring you to be meticulous and methodical. Especially if you want to earn a spot within the offensive space. Good luck and I hope you find the role you desire.

Sounds like you're on the right path. I’ve been doing similar work and can share a bit of the day-to-day. As a 17C, you'll definitely get to work with pentesting, malware analysis, and some programming (Python and C++ come in handy). Your tasks will vary, but you’ll spend time analyzing vulnerabilities, testing defenses, and developing solutions. It’s a lot of problem-solving and sometimes diving deep into code or network setups to identify weaknesses.

By the way, do you know if there’s any specific certification that might give you an edge in this role, or is hands-on experience more important?