Senior Photonic Hardware Engineer – Lifecycle Management

Ciena is committed to our people-first philosophy. Our teams enjoy a culture focused on prioritizing a personalized and flexible work environment that empowers an individual’s passions, growth, wellbeing and belonging. We’re a technology company that leads with our humanity—driving our business priorities alongside meaningful social, community, and societal impact.

How You Will Contribute:

Ciena's customers run many of the largest data communications and telecommunications networks in the world, connecting hundreds of millions of users and devices. The Photonic Hardware team is responsible for the entire lifecycle of hardware for Ciena’s Photonic Line systems from design, development, product introduction, and continual lifecycle management (LCM). Technologies of focus include Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers, Raman amplifiers, ROADMs, Wavelength-Selective Switches, Optical Channel Monitors, OTDR, etc. This is a new position as part of a growing LCM working group to support Ciena’s widely deployed photonic line systems hardware.

In this role, you will act as a prime contact for all LCM activities within the Photonic Hardware team, including factory support, field support, and design. This role will grow in scope over time, and the successful candidate will have opportunities to influence the direction of the team and investment strategy in LCM. The ideal candidate for this role will have an unrelenting desire to understand how things work at a fundamental level, get to the root cause of problems, and continuously look for improvements to our processes.

A key part of the role is to efficiently manage interactions with suppliers and collaborate with other functional teams within Ciena.

The position is on-site and based in Ottawa, Canada.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

• Work with testing and new product introduction (NPI) teams affiliated with factory production to improve test coverage and efficiency, and look for opportunities to broadly improve factory processes including: automating tasks, changing test procedures, parallelizing tests, methods to find issues faster, etc.

• Improve automation to continuously monitor factory yield across different products, and work with factories and suppliers to improve processes to manage and improve yield

• Analyze and debug critical customer field issues and consult with various teams across Ciena and at supplier companies to rigorously provide root cause analysis on various problems

• Lead design and verification activities on hardware updates to existing products while maintaining performance specifications, e.g. for cost reduction or to phase out components that will not be manufactured in the future

Education and Experience:

• Bachelors, Masters, or Ph.D. in engineering or a similar technical discipline (e.g. Physics)

• Significant work experience (min 5 years combined in industry excluding academic experience) in LCM, or R&D in one or more of the following areas:

  • Optical hardware including one or more of the following technologies (min 2 years): EDFAs, Raman amplifiers, WSSs, OCMs, OTDRs

  • Electronic hardware design, verification, and/or debugging at one or more levels of abstraction in electronic subsystems, e.g.: board level, component or device level, experience with FPGAs (e.g. HDL, RTL, etc.), experience with MCUs programming and firmware, experience with various serial interfaces (UART, SPI, I2C, etc.)

Candidate profile:

• Strong knowledge of technologies related to Photonic line systems (amplifiers, WSSs, ROADMs, OCMs/OPMs, AWG, EDFA etc.)

• Knowledge of hardware and software design for photonic / electronic circuit packs

• Exceptional problem-solving skills and the ability to lead an investigation to converge to the right conclusions (root cause and corrective actions) in a timely manner

• Prior experience in product development process, including design, validation, transfer to production

• Excellent communication, interpersonal, and teamwork skills are essential – this role requires interaction with people from a wide range of backgrounds

• Self motivated: manages own projects and works independently

• Able to multi-task and rapidly re-prioritize tasks

• Solid programming skills and experience in automating tasks using one or more high level languages such as Python

• Experience with aggregating, analysing, and summarizing metrics from various data sources on large datasets in an automated way, e.g. using advanced database queries

• Experience with lab / instrument automation is an asset

• Experience with MATLAB is an asset

Compensation and Benefits

The annual pay range for this position is $90,800 - $145,000.

Pay ranges at Ciena are designed to accommodate variations in knowledge, skills, experience, market conditions, and locations, reflecting our diverse products, industries, and lines of business. Please note that the pay range information provided in this posting pertains specifically to the primary location, which is the top location listed in case multiple locations are available.

Non-Sales employees may be eligible for a discretionary incentive bonus, while Sales employees may be eligible for a sales commission. In addition to competitive compensation, Ciena offers a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, and vision plans, participation in 401(K) (USA) & DCPP (Canada) with company matching, Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP), Employee Assistance Program (EAP), company-paid holidays, paid sick leave, and vacation time. We also comply with all applicable laws regarding Paid Family Leave and other leaves of absence.
 

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At Ciena, we are committed to building and fostering an environment in which our employees feel respected, valued, and heard. Ciena values the diversity of its workforce and respects its employees as individuals. We do not tolerate any form of discrimination.

Ciena is an Equal Opportunity Employer, including disability and protected veteran status.

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