Ciena Reviews

Pros

-. Ethernet Technology
-. Converge Ethernet and Optical into single platform
-.

Cons

-. Reduce management to employee ratio

Pros

very good work life balance

Cons

no career growth opportunities. the company is quite old after acquiring Nortel

Advice to Senior Management

let people grow in the company layer 3 is too crowded very few can go to level 4 and the promotion criteria is not transparent

Pros

Good benefits and mediocre pay for entry level engineers.
Free water and restrooms are nice.
Most people are friendly.
Interesting to learn various telecom technology.

Cons

Not much growth opportunity.
There are barely raises and bonuses are nearly none existent.
Promotions don't seem to come and a good amount of incompetency in the company.

Pros

- Good salary and benefits
- Good opportunites
- Decent time off policies
- Decent working environment
- Some opportunities for growth (if the company grew)

Cons

- Terrible top management. Same senior management and Board of Directors for at least 10 years. Golden parachutes (for what?) are abundant. That is the main reason for all the "one-time charges".
- Layoffs, acquisition, layoffs, acquisition, layoffs, acquisition
- Titles are out of whack. Directors, Senior Directors, VP are flying around everywhere. Who actually works there?

Advice to Senior Management

Get some folks (and not the cronies that started with the original Ciena organization) in there and run it as "real company". CEO Gary Smith's previous job was as Vice President of Sales at the semi-public entity Intelsat. Time to change (even if it will cost the CEO's 3 million dollar exit agreement).

Pros

Technical leadership in the industry
Benefit

Cons

Crazy leadership style
Always changing organization and marketing strategy
Politics in office

Pros

The work environment is nice and relaxing. It is mainly focused on network solutions which makes anyone interested in that field feel comfortable.

Cons

Some of the locations of Ciena sites can be unsuitable for some people. Also, it is not very well known although it has been expanding greatly.

Pros

Ciena pays among the leaders.

Cons

Work/life balance could use improvement.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to employee, ask for feedback.

Pros

learning opportunities are available; good place to work closely with teams from different functions;global presence; focus on customers and relationships

Cons

poor systems; weak in integration; feels like you are always playing catch up to meet deadlines or quarterly revenue targets;no salary increases.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in tools for engineering teams;motivate personnel with annual salary increase;reduce number of layers and senior executives with meaningless titles

Pros

people are great to work with. very professional

Cons

Little career development or advancement

Advice to Senior Management

focused on company growth

Pros

Flexible, good salary, ok benefits, nice offices in Linthicum MD,

Cons

Lack of processes/systems cause many manual and therefore time-consuming, error-prone activities. Lots of non-value add work due to lack of investment in infrastructure/processes. Lack of financial analysis. Accounting refuses to provide financial analysis to management.

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in IT/infrastructure and FP&A. Mandate policies. Man-up.