Verification and Field Application Engineer - Hybrid, 3 DAW on site in Alpharetta

Verification And Field Application 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.

Looking for a Verification and Field Application Engineer to support our client's Wave Logic Optical Modem products, focused on developing and executing test strategies, plans, and validation activities. This role includes a mix of manual and automated testing, with a strong emphasis on customer use cases, system-level validation, Python-based automation, troubleshooting, and field/customer support. The engineer will work closely with R&D, PLM, subject matter experts, and customers to validate product capabilities, reproduce and resolve issues, support demos, and continuously improve both the product and overall test environment.

Daily tasks:

• Develop comprehensive test strategies and test plans to validate customer use cases, product capabilities, and system-level behavior.
• Perform both manual testing and automated testing for optical modem, networking, and telecom-related features.
• Build and maintain lab test environments for validation activities, considering interactions across multiple product features and configurations.
• Execute validation test cases, analyze results, document findings, and report defects clearly.
• Develop, execute, debug, and maintain Python automation test cases to improve test coverage and execution efficiency.
• Augment and improve existing automated test cases, test scripts, and automation frameworks.
• Troubleshoot automation failures, lab issues, product behavior, and customer-reported defects.
• Report defects and follow up with design/R&D teams through closure.
• Summarize test metrics, communicate test results, and provide clear status updates to stakeholders.
• Work closely with subject matter experts to ensure testing aligns with customer-focused solutions, product specifications, and expected system behavior.
• Support customer lab activities, field issues, customer demos, and issue reproduction.
• Participate in customer-facing discussions, including demos, technical support calls, issue reviews, and requirements clarification.
• Review customer-reported issues and feedback with appropriate engineering teams to identify potential design improvements.
• Use available tools, logs, CLI commands, APIs, SDKs, JSON interfaces, and lab equipment to configure, validate, and troubleshoot devices.
• Evaluate and apply modern tools, including AI-assisted coding or automation tools, where appropriate, to improve testing efficiency and productivity.

Must haves:

• 5–10 years of experience in product verification, system test, test automation, field application engineering, or customer support engineering.
• Strong background in manual testing, automation testing, and system-level validation.
• Experience creating and maintaining Python-based test automation.
• Ability to write, execute, debug, and fix automation scripts.
• Experience determining what should be automated versus what should remain manual or exploratory testing.
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills.
• Experience working in a lab environment with test equipment and physical system configurations.
• Ability to investigate difficult or intermittent issues using logs, test data, automation output, CLI, and system behavior.
• Knowledge of software testing methodologies, defect lifecycle, regression testing, and test best practices.
• Familiarity with CLI, JSON, SDKs, APIs, and device configuration interfaces.
• Experience with Jenkins CI/CD or other CI/CD platforms is a plus.
• Strong commitment to product excellence, quality, and customer satisfaction.
• Ability to understand customer use cases and translate them into practical test coverage.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to communicate clearly with multi-site engineering teams, PLM, R&D, and customers.
• Comfortable presenting technical information in customer demos,…