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.
Consultant – Sales Engineer
How You Will Contribute:
Reporting to Senior Manager - Sales Engineering, your role will be a strategic, customer facing, Routing and Switching Consulting Systems Engineer supporting European Service Provider customers to define and implement next generation networks based on Ciena’s Routing and Switching portfolio.
You will be accountable for defining, developing and presenting Routing and Switching solutions with key customers and partners as well as the broader Sales/SE community. As a member of the Sales Engineering team, the candidate will work directly with the account teams to define strategy, solutions, and perform in depth feature analysis required for success, including driving and tracking the features to ensure continued focus.
You will play a key role, interfacing with customers at all stages, acting as a primary voice for Ciena as it relates to Routing and Switching solutions and their value. Important parts of your role will be to support RFx responses, lead technical tasks (ie lab trials), and work with technical leads to guide them through the operation of Ciena equipment.
This is a highly interactive role, requiring interaction with many organizations within Ciena, including sales and sales engineering teams, as well as corporate entities such as Product Line Management, R&D, CTO and Professional Services.
You’ll play an important role relative to knowledge transfer - ensuring the continuous upskilling of the sales teams on technical and commercial solutions. You will actively transfer knowledge to local sales and sales/systems engineering resources to build increasing fluency in architectural solutions, as opposed to product-based solutions, and business value in addition to technical differentiation.
Key responsibilities:
1. Supporting complex architectural engagements with Ciena customers, involving all relevant products and technologies within Ciena’s portfolio while increasing knowledge and understanding of solution architectures across the broader sales and system/sales engineering community.
2. Working alongside other engineering/design resources to specify the best solution for a given opportunity and support PLM requests for key roadmap requirements to support business opportunities.
3. Playing an active role in supporting bid responses, as well as technical presentations, demos, and proofs of concept throughout a sales cycle
4. Driving advanced architecture discussions that incorporate Routing, Carrier Ethernet, Adaptive IP, Network Management, SDN/NFV/Cloud, and virtualization
5. Working directly with customer technical leads to guide them through provisioning Ciena routers and switches and get them comfortable with the Ciena SAOS CLI and NMS operations of Ciena products
6. Ensuring that any customer specific activities are tracked through Salesforce while concurrently developing and building effective relationships with key customer stakeholders.
7. Influencing PLM in the development of new capabilities to support architectures relevant to customers in the region.
8. Assisting in tracking of product deliverables and communicating issues to regional teams
9. 25%-30% travel required
The Must Haves:
10. Expert level knowledge of multi-layer network architectures (IP, Ethernet, MPLS) and Core Routing/Switching technologies and protocols (BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, IGRP,G.8032, MPLS-TP, 802.1ag, etc) is required
11. Expert in architecting complex IP and Carrier Ethernet Networks
12. Detailed understanding of Carrier Network deployments and architectures
13. Detailed understanding of Service Provider customer environments
14. Hands-on systems level understanding and an ability to learn and apply new concepts and technologies quickly
15. Understanding of backbone long-haul transport, metro DWDM, optical evolution and packet transport a plus
16. Proficiency in English is a must and fluency in German and/or Polish would be seen as a plus for this role.
17. Time management skills; ability to plan, prioritize, execute & follow-up within a timely manner
18. Flexible, able to handle multiple tasks with minimal supervision
19. Ability to build strong customer relationships and support an overall sales strategy
20. Expert technical expertise and desire to learn new technologies
21. Needs to have demonstrated lead in management of on-going activities such as RFP activity, trials and product acceptance
22. Experience of strategic collaboration between Engineering, Account Management, Commercial Management and PLM
23. Technical Degree; BS in Engineering or Computer Science or relevant experience such as industry/vendor certifications
24. In-depth knowledge of multilayer networking systems
25. 7+ years telecommunication industry experience
Assets:
26. Effective communicator (executive presence, synthesized messaging (+) strong written/verbal/visual/video/social skills)
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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.