Director, Advanced Network Planning

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. Ciena is seeking a technical leader to direct the Advanced Network Planning group within the Navigator Network Control Suite Product Line Management organization. This leader will guide a team of highly qualified network analysts who support Ciena’s largest customers on tactical and strategic network planning initiatives. The role also shapes the Navigator roadmap by identifying emerging customer and market needs, directing research, and incubating advanced network optimization algorithms and tools. How you will make an impact: Lead executive and technical engagements with Ciena’s global sales organization and customers, using deep domain expertise to guide the design, optimization, and analysis of optical, IP, and data centre network architectures. Anticipate future network planning needs by synthesizing customer challenges, market insights, and technology trends, then translate those findings into prioritized research themes, product hypotheses, and planning tool concepts. Set the technical research agenda for new network planning and optimization approaches, establish rigorous evaluation criteria, and validate the resulting methods through real customer network planning projects.    Recent research areas have included forecasting, capacity planning automation, route and spectrum assignment optimization, failure analysis, and service availability modeling. Define and communicate a compelling technical vision for advanced network planning, tailoring the message to align business leaders, customers, engineers, and product stakeholders. Provide technical direction and partner with Product Line Management, engineering, and product development teams to translate validated concepts into scalable planning capabilities and bring them successfully to market. Partner cross-functionally with hardware teams to model and analyze alternative network architectures, providing data-driven insights that influence product roadmap decisions. Build, mentor, and lead a high-performing team of network planning experts, establishing technical standards, strengthening critical capabilities, and creating an environment of rigorous analysis, innovation, and continuous learning. The must haves: 15+ years of telecommunications experience spanning deep technical roles and positions with product, customer, or business leadership accountability. 10+ years expertise in optical and IP transport technologies, including network architecture, control, resiliency, capacity engineering, and optimization trade-offs. Substantial experience in network planning, architecture analysis, optimization, and the application of analytical methods to complex customer networks. Proven experience providing technical and product leadership for telecommunications software applications from concept and validation through productization, deployment, and measurable market adoption. Experience with the use of AI tools as aids to software code development. Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with a demonstrated ability to explain complex technical topics, challenge assumptions constructively, and influence decisions across engineering, product, sales, services, customers, and executive leadership. Demonstrated ability to evaluate and apply AI-enabled methods to network planning, optimization, modeling, and decision support, with sound judgment regarding data quality, model validation, explainability, operational risk, and measurable customer outcomes. Experience using AI-enabled tools and methods to accelerate software development, explore architectures, prototype