Senior Manager

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What will you do at Ciena?
Ciena is looking for highly motivated and talented customer-facing manager of a new IP and Optical Sales Engineering UK team focused on positioning Ciena’s Routing and Switching and Optical portfolio solutions. This is a great opportunity to lead a dedicated team of Sales engineers looking at all levels of technology provided by Ciena. Coaching the team and engaging with the customers at many different technical levels to position Cienas solutions.
This manager will own the technical long-term strategy for this major area of focus and will be accountable for the team’s direction and outcomes across the UK.

Responsibilities
• Define and own vision for the new IP and Optical SE team in the UK
• In partnership with the Sales Leader for the UK, grow the IP business and maintain our market leading Optical position aligned to the Account Strategic plans
• Driving deep collaboration across the SE, S3 and PLM functions
• Talent Management- attract, develop, coach the team of highly skilled SE’s across the technical domains
• Support account team’s the technical relationship at CxO level across different areas of the business.
• Serve as a senior individual contributor technical resource for customer related issues, assisting with advanced customer applications.
• Assist in assessment of potential product features, providing input on prioritisation.
• Be capable of presenting to large audiences on the subject matter, including the ability to present at conferences.
• Influence and capture customer applications to ensure product fits with Ciena portfolio.
• Understand the evolution of Cienas product portfolio and articulate these plans to customers at a senior level, the SE team and GTM hub virtual team.
• Strong business development/commercial acumen to partner and support the UK strategy in moving into adjacent areas and evolving our Routing/Switching Networking portfolio engagement.
• 10-30%+ travel required.

General Activities
• Manage a team of sales engineers covering the UK Market and diverse technical domain solutions, including recruiting, training and driving them forward to achieve a high performance team with excellent results.
• Excellent knowledge of Telecommunications market – Access, aggregation, next generation Metro and core.
• Ensure Sale Engineers are trained to the required level on relevant range of Ciena solutions.
• Ensure processes followed by engineering team
• Identify, communicate and implement Sale Engineer team goals and objectives.
• Drive advanced architecture discussions that incorporate routing/switching, Adaptive IP, Network Management, SDN/NFV/Cloud, and virtualization
• Manage customer requests and coordinate activities.
• Review quotes, RFX's, and forecasts
• Ability to present conceptual technology including but not limited to 5G, SDN/NFV, L0/1/2/3 Network layer functionality.
• Creation of development plans and ownership for succession plans.
• Share team best practices across region and wider
• Facilitate the free flow of ideas within the team
• Following review sessions with Mission Owners put in place any improvement plan needed

Collaboration with stakeholders
• Work with hub leader(s) to ensure account has suitable Sale Engineer coverage.
• Provide leadership on product strategies on a hub level in conjunction with the account Sale Engineers.
• Serve as the senior customer facing Sale Engineer resource when required.
• Provide technical expertise to support the Sales/Director: technology applications, during complex sales of multi-product solutions.
• Update regional and global PLM on account solution requirements

Areas of impact
• Ability to engage different market segments including but not limited to Datacenter, utilities, Tier 1/2/3 Operators, wholesale operator and enterprise.
• Telecommunication networks, Network management, & SDN (MDSO / NFV) preferably with knowledge of Ciena Blue Planet solutions
• Ability to liaise with Ciena engineering personnel to capture new feature requirements, articulate the key feature requirements and position the Ciena solution to meet those needs.
• Relationship skills and ability to inspire trust and influence others including senior Execs.
• Expert level knowledge, of Core Routing/Switching technologies and protocols (BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, IGRP,G.8032, MPLS-TP, 802.1ag, etc) and multi-layer network architectures (IP, Ethernet, MPLS) and is required
• Ability to drive RFP’s and communicate technical quotations accurately.
• Understanding of competitive sales environment.
• Understanding and commitment to Cienas Strategic pillars and direction.
• Professionalism in attitude, conduct, and appearance.
• Good understanding of current telecommunication architecture approaches and have the capacity to lead technical discussions across multiple network areas

Experience
• Technical Degree; BSEE or relevant experience
• Expert in optical, DWDM, OTN, coherent plugs and other optical skills along siarchitecting complex IP and Carrier Ethernet Networks
• 5-10 years telecommunication industry experience and depth of experience in managing an SE Team
• Solid proven experience in the communication industry although must be commercially minded, the candidate will have a practical engineering back-ground with sales experience to add to the technical capabilities.
• Demonstrate decision-making and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent presentation, interpersonal and communications skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills (English), both technical and non-technical.

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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.

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