Senior Manager, Lifecycle Management & Reliability

As the global leader in high-speed connectivity, Ciena builds the critical infrastructure powering the AI era. We’re a technology company shaping the future of networking, guided by innovation, integrity, and collaboration. Through development opportunities, meaningful work, and flexibility, Ciena supports growth and well-being—on and off the job. Connect with a career that matters.

.Job Description

We are seeking an experienced engineering leader to join our Hardware Engineering organization in Ottawa, ON, leading multidisciplinary teams across the lifecycle of complex packet and optical networking products. The role provides leadership for product reliability, manufacturability, supply continuity, failure analysis, and technical support across multiple platforms and product families. The successful candidate will combine strong technical leadership with sound business judgment to balance customer commitments, product quality, manufacturing readiness, supply continuity, and engineering priorities.

How you will make an impact:

• Lead and develop a multidisciplinary hardware engineering team supporting packet and optical networking platforms through development, qualification, manufacturing, sustaining, field support, and end-of-life.
• Provide technical and team leadership for complex electrical, optical, FPGA, SerDes, memory, interface, power, manufacturing, and product-quality investigations.
• Drive cross-functional decisions involving hardware design, product engineering, manufacturing, quality, supply chain, software, systems engineering, product management, suppliers, and customer-facing organizations.
• Lead component obsolescence, alternate sourcing, qualification, cost-reduction, engineering change, and supply-continuity initiatives across multiple product families.
• Make risk-based decisions on product changes, component substitutions, qualifications, manufacturing readiness, field issues, supplier issues, and corrective actions.
• Analyze qualification results, manufacturing metrics, field-return trends, reliability data, and failure-analysis findings to identify risks and drive corrective actions.
• Lead reliability engineering, product reliability prediction, failure investigations, and laboratory capabilities that enable root-cause analysis and resolution of product and customer issues.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives that improve engineering effectiveness, product quality, lifecycle management, and organizational scalability.

The Must Haves:

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related engineering discipline.
• Experience: 10+ years of hardware engineering experience in telecommunications, networking, or optical systems, including 3+ years leading engineering teams, technical projects, or cross-functional initiatives.
• Demonstrated experience supporting products through development, qualification, manufacturing, sustaining, field service, and end-of-life.
• Strong foundation in hardware design, product qualification, reliability engineering, manufacturing, product quality, failure analysis, and root-cause analysis.
• Technical breadth across electrical, optical, and power technologies with the ability to lead complex investigations.
• Experience making risk-based decisions involving engineering changes, component substitutions, qualifications, manufacturing readiness, supplier issues, field quality, product lifecycle management, configuration management, and component qualification.
• Proven ability to hire, develop, and retain engineering talent, prioritize competing technical and business issues, and influence stakeholders across engineering, manufacturing, quality, supply chain, product management, and executive leadership.

Nice to Haves:

• Master's degree or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related engineering discipline.
• Experience with telecommunications transport platforms, packet networking systems, or high-speed networking products.
• Experience with FPGA- and ASIC-based platforms and common high-speed interfaces such as PCIe, DDR, Ethernet, SPI, I²C, and chip-to-chip interconnect technologies.
• Familiarity with power architectures, analog circuitry, hardware monitoring systems, and manufacturing-test methodologies.
• Experience with reliability prediction, FMECA, or structured reliability engineering methodologies.
• Experience with Agile PLM, Jira, Confluence, engineering dashboards, automation tools, and data analytics.
• Familiarity with global manufacturing operations, supplier management, and contract-manufacturing environments.

Pay Range: The annual salary range for this position is $129,700 - $253,100

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.