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.

Not ready to apply? Join ourTalent Communityto get relevant job alerts straight to your inbox.

POSITION SUMMARY:

Ciena Corporation, the network specialist, offers leading network infrastructure solutions, intelligent software and a comprehensive services practice. Our solutions form the foundation of many of the largest, most reliable and sophisticated Internet content provider, service provider, enterprise, government, and research and education networks across the globe.

As the customer facing, Principal Solutions Architect supporting the Global Cloud Networking (GCN) vertical, the ideal candidate requires a strong understanding of current and future trends in network hardware, packet-optical integration, network software and applications, customer applications, and operations in the Cloud Networking ecosystem. The candidate must be able to perform technical oversight internally to ensure Ciena's hardware and software direction aligns with customer needs, work collaboratively with key influencers in the industry to drive technology direction, and engage with customer personnel from Engineering to C-Level Executives. This candidate must have a complete understanding of the full lifecycle of the network and software stacks of the equipment, operations, planning, facilities, services and assurance mechanisms in our customer environments. The candidate must have knowledge of all areas of network architecture and engineering. This includes data center and regional fabrics, data center and regional aggregation, edge/peering, and core networks.. The candidate must be able to articulate and describe the current and forward-looking networking use cases in cloud scale network architectures and how future changes in these use cases may impact Ciena.

The ideal candidate possesses exceptional executive-level communication skills, demonstrating the ability to convey complex ideas clearly and concisely and must also be able to create and communicate complete network solutions that add value and differentiates Ciena from our competition. The candidate must be able to develop relationships and align with both internal (PLM, engineering, and services) and external (Customer) organizations and provide a forward-looking plan that enables technology adoption. In addition, the ability to position Ciena's value in hardware and software leadership in all areas of network, data center solutions, automation and operations. The ideal candidate would be able to articulate and drive a clear view to PLM and engineering of the architecture and designs required by this customer environment, and the trends and direction that follow.

This position is based in North America. This position will require travel to visit GCN customers that are primarily based in the US, with occasional international travel, and travel to Ciena R&D headquarters in Ottawa, Canada.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Develop and influence the strategic direction to Ciena's product organizations on solutions required to capture and maintain the business of Ciena's existing and developing GCN customers, with specific focus on next generation products and architectures.
• Provide technical leadership to the Global GCN Sales team to define and deliver the overall strategy that aligns with the evolution of networking technologies, software, and automation.
• Partner with GCN sales teams to identify new business opportunities and assist in developing business plans to create, validate, and introduce new solutions to the market.
• Develop and communicate an organizational vision, mission, and strategies to stakeholders at all levels, aligning messaging with overarching goals and objectives.
• Capture operational and scale requirements of the customer environment to automate, accelerate product adoption and integrate technology in their networks.
• Engage on a regular basis with technical leads within the GCN space and develop Ciena's mindshare and collaboration in this vertical and within the industry.
• Identify and drive opportunities for Ciena to collaborate with GCN customers and the industry on architectures, software, automation, and operations.
• Represent Ciena within relevant industry standards bodies and conferences.
• Assist in assessment of new product features, providing input on prioritization
• Lead customer product solution discussions and presentations
• Make independent decisions on routine customer engagements in accordance with company policy and procedures
• Ability to work within a globally matrixed sales team
• 30%+ travel may be required to visit GCN customers, as well as domestic and international travel to industry conferences, and Ciena locations

SKILLS

• In depth knowledge of software systems, development, and operationalization in the hyperscale Data Center environment. Including Agile development, SDN, DevOps, and CI/CD environments.
• In-depth knowledge and understanding of the current IP/MPLS network architecture, network layer and control plane protocols and standards
• Significant design and implementation experience with ROADM/DWDM/CWDM technologies
• In-depth knowledge of DWDM and ROADM platforms
• In-depth knowledge and experience in coherent pluggable optics, converged IP/Optical or coherent routing architectures, with understanding of OIF 400ZR/800ZR, OpenZR+, OpenROADM
• Deep understanding of OTN, SONET, SDH, TDM, DWDM, and CWDM protocols and standards
• Construction of product feature requirements, epics and user stories
• Problem solving and communication skills
• Time management skills; ability to plan, prioritize, execute & follow-up
• Professionalism in attitude, conduct, and appearance

• Ability to build strong relationships and construct a long-term technology strategy
• Strong technical expertise and desire to learn new technologies
• Must be able to work collaboratively with key industry thought leaders
• Must be able to work collaboratively with Ciena R&D, Engineering and PLM
• Excellent organizational skills due to dynamic nature of activities
• Superior verbal and written communication skills

EDUCATION and RELEVANT EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor's Degree (CS, EE), or equivalent experience, required
• Master's Degree, preferred
• 10+ years of experience in telecommunications or content/cloud provider environments
• Experience with SDN technologies such as OpenFlow or OpenStack.
• 10+ Experience in networking, DWDM, CWDM, IPv4, IPv6 Networking protocols (routing, switching, security, VLANs, ACLs, QoS) and in-depth knowledge of Switch ASIC architectures/drivers.
• Software/Network Engineering or Product Management/Development background preferred

#LI-WH1

#LI-Remote