The duty shift aboard the USS Cerritos to which ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Tendi and Rutherford belong, and around whose junior officers Lower Decks is built.
Beta Shift is one of the watches into which the crew of the California-class USS Cerritos is divided. Its most junior members sleep in bunks set into a corridor on the lower decks and do the unglamorous work of a second contact ship.
The four leads of Lower Decks all serve on the shift, and their loyalty to one another is a constant of the series. It is tested most directly in Room for Growth, where they learn that Delta Shift means to rig a lottery for private quarters and set out to beat their rivals to the terminal.
On finding that only one room is available, the Beta Shift ensigns give up their place in the draw so that none of them has to leave the others behind.