Ciena reviews

4.1

81% would recommend to a friend

(2,289 total reviews)
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Gary B. Smith

85% approve of CEO

74% positive business outlook

Ciena has an employee rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars, based on 2,289 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Ciena employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Telecommunications industry (3.6 stars).

Reviews by job title

2K reviews
1.0
Jan 2, 2015

Hated working here

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Only pro is that you had a job and the benefits were fine.

Cons

There was a lot of office politics, gossiping and favoritism and a lot of unprofessionalism. A couple ghetto employees too. If you didn't act ghetto and stayed to yourself or tell your entire personal life then they always thought you were up to something or hiding things. Management sucked big time. Nobody knew what they were doing just pretended to be then get on others that didn't know what they were doing either. My department was not that big and there were two employees that would actually sleep at their desk all the time. Manager didn't know very much so the manager would go to the office napper for advice and answer since she was there the longest. If you want to feel like just a worker and nothing more than its the job for you. There were no raises and the work that other departments didnt want to do that department had to do it. So we got the crap no one else wanted to do. The company didn't know how to say no to the customer so we also go stuck with doing a crap load of manual tedious repetitive bs work. I was hired hourly then a year or two into the job I guess they didnt want to pay us for the overtime that was mandatory so then made us salary. I think that is pretty fradulent and maybe illegal I don't know but I do know that I'm so glad I don't have to work there and here about the same boring no substance mediocre bs conversations anymore. Worst job ever!!!

1.0
Sep 20, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The other engineers you work with are great. Management I worked for were hard to work with but other departments had really food managers.

Cons

Management will lie to you constantly! They denied our department was getting laid-off until the very last moment.

1.0
Dec 7, 2020

Biggest career mistake !!!!

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Same CEO for 20 years who says all the right things and a great place if you are a very specific and connected R&D engineer in Canada. You can spend your entire life with them especially if you grew up at Nortel.

Cons

If outside Canada, keep looking. Claims to be Maryland based but limited growth if not in Canada and this company seriously lacks diversity in its workforce. Currently hiring remote workers due to pandemic but once that shifts back to being present in an office, you will see firsthand the lack of diversity. Everyone in R&D must come from a direct competitor and anyone outside R&D must look the part. They will beg for innovation but once displayed, those innovative ideas will get ignored or ridiculed. Lastly, promotions are only for those tenured “non diverse” people who live and breath and bleed Ciena red. If you don’t drink the Kool-aide, you’ll get flushed out quickly and your replacement will be waiting in the wings so watch your back.

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Ciena Response
5y
Thank you for taking the time to let us know the experiences you’ve had at Ciena. I’m sorry they were not all positive ones and we would really like to discuss them further. Please drop us an email at Cienafeedback@ciena.com and help us do a deeper dive on how to improve employee relations geared toward you specific experience.
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Glassdoor has 2,683 Ciena reviews submitted anonymously by Ciena employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Ciena is right for you.