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.
How You Will Contribute
We are seeking a highly technical Field Application Engineer / Sales Engineer to support the growth of Ciena’s Interconnects business with hyperscalers, GPU and AI compute builders, and OEM/ODM partners in North America. This role bridges deep technical engagement with commercial agility — supporting solution positioning, architecture discussions, lab integration and testing, performance validation, and pre-sales engineering.
You will work hands-on with engineering teams at major cloud providers, leading OEMs, emerging AI system developers, and silicon ecosystem partners to enable successful design-in of Ciena’s silicon and optical interconnect technologies. This role is crucial to influencing product requirements, driving adoption, accelerating design cycles, and increasing win-rate velocity.
The Must Haves:
- Provide pre-sales technical leadership for Ciena's Interconnects portfolio across hyperscalers, OEMs, and AI/compute system partners.
- Lead lab bring-up, debug, interoperability validation, configuration, and performance testing.
- Translate customer system architectures and requirements into technical solutions and roadmap inputs.
- Support quoting decisions, technical documentation, product collateral, compliance materials, and solution configuration.
- Partner with BD and account teams to guide complex design-win cycles from evaluation to production.
- Serve as primary technical interface for proof-of-concepts (POCs), interoperability events, compliance, and early deployments.
- Deliver technical workshops, product demos, architecture sessions, and executive-level technical briefings.
- Provide competitive intelligence, ecosystem developments, and silicon/optics trends to influence PLM and roadmap alignment.
- Support post-sales issue triage with R&D, sustaining engineering, and quality teams — ensuring customer success during scale-up.
- Advocate for customer requirements while balancing PLM strategy, roadmap alignment, and commercial constraints.
Key KPIs
- Number and velocity of design wins
- Lab evaluation cycle time reduction
- Successful POCs and interoperability tests
- Forecast accuracy for ramping programs
- Product feedback captured and actioned into PLM
- Customer technical satisfaction and adoption rate
Required Experience & Skills
- 7–12 years in FAE, solutions engineering, high-speed hardware, optical interconnect, silicon bring-up, or datacenter systems engineering.
- Deep familiarity with one or more of: DSP/retimer, SERDES, optics/pluggables, AEC/ACC, PCIe, Ethernet, high-speed test equipment.
- Experience working directly with hyperscalers (AWS, Google, Meta, Microsoft, etc.) and/or major OEMs (Cisco, Arista, HPE/Juniper, etc.).
- Hands-on debugging with oscilloscopes, BERTs, IBIS-AMI, simulation, or signal integrity tools.
- Ability to engage simultaneously at engineering depth and executive clarity.
- BS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or similar required; MS preferred.
- Strong communication, documentation, and presentation skills — able to translate between engineering, PLM, and commercial audiences.
Personal Attributes
- Highly autonomous, accountable, and comfortable in fast-evolving environments.
- Strong customer empathy and ability to navigate technical and organizational ambiguity.
- “Builder” mindset — thrives in high-growth, high-expectation environments.
- Ability to represent Ciena Interconnects with credibility inside next-generation AI and compute ecosystems.
Travel
- Travel up to ~30%, including customer labs, interoperability events, and global team sessions.
The annual pay range for this position in California is $208,600 - $333,200 USD.
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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.
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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.
If contacted in relation to a job opportunity, please advise Ciena of any accommodation measures you may require.
Top Skills
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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