Director, Product Line Management – Waveserver PLM Team

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.

• 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.

• 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 plug gables, 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.

• 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

Pay ranges at Ciena are designed to accommodate variations in knowledge, skills, experience, market conditions, and locations, reflecting our diverse products, industries, and lines…