Director, Sustaining Engineering, Coherent Optical Transceivers

About the Role

The Director, Sustaining Engineering leads the Thailand-based engineering team responsible for the manufacture, quality, performance, cost, and supply continuity of coherent optical components and transceiver modules produced through Ciena's contract manufacturing partners. The role serves as the primary engineering interface across R&D/NPI, Operations, Supply Chain, Quality, Product Line Management, and external manufacturing partners, with accountability for product performance after release to manufacturing. This leadership position advances manufacturing readiness, yield improvement, cost reduction, issue resolution, and organizational capability for current and future product needs.

How you will make an impact:

• Lead a multidisciplinary sustaining engineering organization supporting coherent optical transceiver products throughout the production lifecycle.
• Own engineering performance at contract manufacturing partners across yield, quality, reliability, throughput, cycle time, capacity, and cost metrics.
• Establish performance dashboards, engineering governance, escalation processes, manufacturing reviews, and technology audits across manufacturing, quality, supply chain, and R&D/NPI organizations.
• Direct structured root-cause investigations, CAPA activities, containment actions, engineering dispositions, and long-term preventive solutions for factory, field, and customer issues.
• Drive annual yield improvement, manufacturing cost reduction, process capability, automation, test optimization, material usage reduction, and factory efficiency initiatives.
• Lead engineering execution for component substitutions, alternate-source qualifications, redesigns, compliance updates, customer-specific requirements, lifecycle extensions, end-of-life transitions, capacity expansion, technology transfers, and manufacturing site transitions.
• Develop organizational capability through mentoring, succession planning, leadership development, resource prioritization, and alignment with product roadmaps and business growth objectives.

The must haves:

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Optical Engineering, Physics, Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, or related technical discipline.
• Experience: 10+ years of engineering experience in optical communications, photonics, transceiver manufacturing, or related high-technology industries.
• Experience: 5+ years of leadership experience managing engineering teams.
• Demonstrated experience supporting high-volume manufacturing through contract manufacturing partners.
• Proven track record driving yield improvement, cost reduction, and operational excellence programs.
• Application of optical component and transceiver architecture knowledge in manufacturing processes.
• Application of optical, electrical, mechanical, and reliability engineering disciplines.

Nice to haves:

• Experience with coherent optical transceivers, optical networking products, or complex electro-optical systems.