Ciena reviews

The bonus pool is a joke. No positive cross-team communication. In-fighting among team members fostered by the upper management. Poorly managed release schedule. Interview process is a joke. People are hired willy-nilly based on who they knoe rather than how much they know. And the process itself is not regulated - sometimes they have group interviews and sometimes individualized. No respect for employees and future employees. I have seen interview candidates made to wait for hours in the lobby, while they bring in other candidates for interviews. Not enough senior members in the engineering teams. The less experienced Engineers are not able to handle the major design changes. Not enough work for all the Engineers. Right now the all the Engineering teams are in hiring mode but this is just so that the management can get promoted. Loads of people are just sitting around doing their own personal work/training etc. People have been working on the same technologies for years - this is good as they have great knowledge of that one technology but the bad thing is they have no idea about the others and refuse to work on other technologies. One BU rides on the shoulders of the other. This will not work long term and will lead to lay-offs if no new revenue stream is generated. No long term planning. Work is done on a day to day basis leading to mismanagement of time. NO RSUs/Stocks till you are at a much higher grade. Research more about the company culture before accepting a job and take the recruiters words with a pinch of salt.

No real bonus or raises in the 4 years I worked there. A lot of politics required for any vertical movement (promotions) Very little communication between senior management and employees. Varied work schedules with no consistency and forced shift schedules. Always in "crunch mode". Poor release scheduling and management. Yes-man to customers, which constantly forces employees to adjust schedules and add features originally not planned in the release. Technology can be varied some is current, and some is rather ancient.