Senior Field Applications Engineer

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.

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.

We are seeking a Senior Field Applications Engineer (FAE) to join the Data Center PON Solutions product team.  The FAE will ensure the successful introduction and adoption of our next-generation Data Center Out-of-Band Management solution targeted at hyperscalers.  This role sits at the intersection of customer architecture and engineering, Ciena R&D, and product management.  You will be the technical bridge—embedding with customer labs to validate and integrate our platform, feeding critical insights back to R&D, and guiding the product team to deliver a solution that precisely meets the most demanding hyperscaler requirements.

This is a hands-on, high-impact role where success is measured by the speed and quality of customer acceptance, smooth integration into their infrastructure, and the ability to influence product direction with real-world feedback.

How You Will Contribute:

• Lead the certification, testing, integration, and initial deployment of Data Center Out-of-Band Management solutions in hyperscaler customer environments.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including Ciena product, R&D, and account teams to deliver economic value.
• Troubleshoot complex technical issues in real-time and provide strategic guidance to clients.
• Document deployment architectures, operational procedures, and best practices.
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to internal knowledge sharing.

Customer Lab Engagement

• Lead technical engagements with hyperscaler customers during lab evaluations, proof-of-concepts, and pilots.
• Configure, validate, and troubleshoot the end-to-end DCOM solution in customer environments.
• Act as the first line of technical defense for integration issues.

Bridge Between Teams

• Translate customer requirements and observations into actionable feedback for Ciena R&D and product management.
• Provide deep input into roadmap decisions, feature prioritization, and usability improvements.
• Document best practices, operational runbooks, and customer integration workflows.

Management Plane & Protocol Expertise

• Validate automated SDN provisioning solutions in hyperscaler DCOM environments.
• Assess and tune operational performance under real-world workloads.
• Provide deep troubleshooting across management plane, control plane, and data plane layers.

Technical Enablement

• Mentor and train internal FAEs, account teams, and customer operations teams on the new platform.
• Ensure compliance with customer-specific lab and production certification standards.

The Must Haves:

Technical Expertise

• Engineering degree or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years in passive optical LAN, routing, switching, or data center engineering roles.
• Hands-on experience with hyperscaler or Tier 1 service provider networks.
• Experience working with UNIX/Linux/RHEL/Ubuntu and/or any other server OS, be it on bare metal and/or Virtual Machine, and system admin functions.
• Experience relative to the design and architecture of embedded Linux systems including docker containers, Linux kernel, TCP/IP stack, Forwarding Tables, VLANs
• Familiarity with open networking or cloud-native networking projects (OpenConfig, gNMI/gNOI/g*, SONiC, etc.).
• Familiarity with OMCI Provisioning of PON FTTx solutions
• Familiarity with any of the following data center / SP routing platforms (Arista 7800, Juniper PTX10K, Cisco 8800, Nokia IXR SRL, etc.).
• Knowledge of hyperscaler network operations, test methodologies, and tooling.
• Track record of successful Field Application Engineering roles (customer-facing with deep technical integration).

Collaboration Skills

• Proven ability to act as a liaison between customer engineering teams and internal R&D.
• Excellent communication and client-facing skills, conveying technical issues precisely and accurately.
• Comfortable balancing short-term customer demands with long-term product goals.
• Ability to travel as needed to support client engagements.
• Experience working with strategic account environments.

The annual pay range for this position in California is $185,100 - $295,700 USD

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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.