As the global leader in high-speed connectivity, Ciena is committed to a people-first approach. Our teams enjoy a culture focused on prioritizing a flexible work environment that empowers individual growth, well-being, and belonging. We’re a technology company that leads with our humanity—driving our business priorities alongside meaningful social, community, and societal impact.
Ciena’s Waveserver Product Line Management team is seeking a Director of Product Line Management to lead product strategy, roadmap execution, and lifecycle management for the Waveserver portfolio. This role contributes to the direction of high-capacity optical transport solutions by translating customer and market requirements into differentiated products and business outcomes. The position works across multiple functions to support portfolio growth, profitability, and long-term product leadership.
How you will make an impact:
• Define and drive Waveserver product strategy, roadmap direction, and investment priorities aligned to portfolio growth and differentiation.
• Translate customer, sales, and market requirements into product requirements, release priorities, and lifecycle plans.
• Lead cross-functional alignment across engineering, marketing, supply chain, procurement, services, and sales throughout the product lifecycle.
• Drive customer engagements, roadmap discussions, RFP/RFQ responses, offer defense activities, and product trials.
• Develop business cases for features, hardware, software releases, pricing strategies, cost optimization initiatives, and investment decisions.
• Manage product line performance through revenue planning, volume forecasting, margin improvement, competitive positioning, and lifecycle profitability.
• Monitor market developments across optical networking, coherent technologies, DCI, hyperscale networking, encryption, automation, open APIs, fiber sensing, and high-capacity aggregation applications.
The must haves:
• Education: Bachelor’s or master’s degree in electrical engineering, telecommunications, networking, communications systems, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience: 10+ years of relevant industry experience, including at least 5+ years of product line management or equivalent experience.
• Application of coherent optical systems, DWDM, OTN, Ethernet services, optical transport architectures, coherent pluggables, platform software, and network management concepts.
• Experience leading new product introductions, developing business cases, and growing product revenue within a competitive technology market.
• Experience aligning cross-functional teams and influencing stakeholders.
• Experience with pricing, forecasting, margin management, competitive analysis, and customer value positioning.
• Experience communicating with executive audiences and customers, managing complex priorities and trade-off decisions, and supporting customer engagements through occasional travel.
Nice to haves:
• Education: MBA or equivalent business leadership experience.
• Experience with hyperscale, cloud, carrier, subsea, government, enterprise, or research and education customer segments.
• Experience with high-capacity optical transport platforms, compact modular systems, coherent modems, encryption, automation, open management interfaces, or network control software.
• Experience working directly with global sales teams, field engineering, customer engineering, procurement, and supply chain organizations.
• Experience leading product decisions through formal product lifecycle, governance, or business decision point processes.
Pay Range: $166,000 - $265,200 CAD
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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.
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.
If contacted in relation to a job opportunity, please advise Ciena of any accommodation measures you may require.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in electrical engineering, telecommunications, networking, communications systems, or equivalent practical experience.
- 10+ years of relevant industry experience.
- At least 5+ years of product line management or equivalent experience.
- Knowledge and application experience with coherent optical systems, DWDM, OTN, and Ethernet services.
- Experience with optical transport architectures, coherent pluggables, platform software, and network management concepts.
- Experience leading new product introductions and developing business cases.
- Proven experience growing product revenue within a competitive technology market.
- Experience aligning and influencing cross-functional teams (engineering, marketing, supply chain, procurement, services, sales).
- Experience with pricing, forecasting, margin management, and competitive analysis.
- Strong communication with executive audiences and customers; ability to manage complex priorities and trade-offs.
- Willingness to support customer engagements through occasional travel.
- MBA or equivalent business leadership experience.
- Experience with hyperscale, cloud, carrier, subsea, government, enterprise, or research and education customer segments.
- Experience with high-capacity optical transport platforms, compact modular systems, coherent modems, encryption, automation, open management interfaces, or network control software.
- Experience working directly with global sales, field engineering, customer engineering, procurement, and supply chain organizations.
- Experience leading product decisions through formal product lifecycle, governance, or business decision point processes.
Ciena Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Ciena and has not been reviewed or approved by Ciena.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is often characterized as competitive or above-market in certain roles and regions, with references to market-aligned salary ranges and transparency around pay bands.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage is frequently framed as comprehensive, including medical, dental, and vision, with indications that coverage can extend to dependents and is viewed as a meaningful component of total rewards.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time-off offerings are described as flexible and generous, including Flex/uncapped PTO in many cases and additional paid time for volunteering.
Ciena Insights
What We Do
Ciena (NYSE: CIEN) is a global leader in networking systems, services, and software. We build the world’s most adaptive networks to enable our customers to deliver richer, more connected experiences for all users. At our core, Ciena is a company rooted in people. We prioritize deep, collaborative relationships within our teams and alongside our customers, partners, and communities around the world. For three-plus decades, we’ve brought our humanity to our relentless pursuit of innovation. We continue to lead the evolution of networking with a strong track record of industry firsts. As end-user expectations skyrocket, our customers and their networks must transform. Ciena powers this transformation by driving next-generation solutions built for maximum openness and agility—today and into the future. Corporate/Brand Values: • Customer First • Integrity • Velocity • Innovation • Outstanding People We're the perfect size for you to make an impact. W Only Ciena has the depth of expertise and the culture of collaboration and partnership required to help our partners evolve. We do this by strategically integrating hardware, services, and software in an open environment to ensure our clients’ networks are ‘fit for flexibility’ today and into the f
Why Work With Us
We are known for our industry-firsts, including the first coherent optical solution, converged packet-optical platform, and intelligence automation platform. Our commitment extends beyond innovation, logging in over 35,000 volunteer hours and $2 million to worthy causes in 2023. We're the perfect size and culture for you to make a difference.
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