Dataplane Software Engineer, Routing IP
Ciena
As the global leader in high-speed connectivity, Ciena is committed to a people-first approach. Our teams enjoy a culture focused on prioritizing a flexible work environment that empowers individual growth, well-being, and belonging. We’re a technology company that leads with our humanity—driving our business priorities alongside meaningful social, community, and societal impact.
Ciena’s Coherent Routing provides network operators a path to achieve IP/Optical convergence that is designed to optimize network performance through multi-layer operations, dynamic scalability, and improved overall network sustainability. More than just collapsing the IP and optical layers of the network, Ciena’s Coherent Routing takes a holistic approach, bringing together purpose-built routing, leading coherent optics, and intelligent, flexible photonics.
How You Will Contribute:
The Routing and Switching product group is seeking a senior embedded software engineer with experience in designing and developing embedded carrier-grade software on custom hardware platforms. As a member of the team, the successful candidate will participate in all states of the software development life cycle, including:
- Work collaboratively in all stages of the software development process, including requirements analysis, functional specification, design, coding, integration, verification and support.
- Design and develop software written in C/C++ for advanced Layer 2, MPLS and IP services, including drivers, APIs and dataplane applications.
- Develop software which runs in a real-time embedded Linux environment.
- Contribute towards the release of new products and new networking features as well as enhancements of existing software.
- Provide basic project management for your own work, including effort estimation, tracking, monitoring, status reporting, communicating advancements and raising potential issues that may have an influence on product functionality or target dates.
- Engineer software using the Agile methodology.
- Develop and maintain carrier-grade software through test driven development, automated unit testing, and comprehensive integration testing.
- Participate in backlog defect reduction.
- Troubleshoot issues and work with hardware, software and system engineers to identify the root cause.
- Help investigate and collect information to resolve process or design issues found in the codebase.
What technical experience and/or professional and personal skills are required for this role?
- Bachelor’s degree in Electrical/Computer Engineering
- 5+ years work experience focused on embedded software development in a networking or telecommunications environment
- Extensive C programming language experience
- Familiarity with developing software on multi-processor, highly concurrent systems running in an embedded Linux environment
- Experience with real-time, embedded software development for some or all of the following data plane technologies:
- Hardware-based Layer 2/3 forwarding engines (ASICs, NPUs, FPGAs, TCAMs)
- End-to-end slow path forwarding and packet exception handling
- MPLS, BGP and Segment Routing centric solutions
- IPv4, IPv6, E-VPN and IP-VPN
- Embedded fast protection mechanisms such as BFD, BGP-PIC and FRR
- Other data-plane services including traffic management, metering, ACLs
- Experience with Broadcom DNX/XGS packet processing chipsets is a strong asset
- Experience with Datapath programming using DPDK is an asset
- Good knowledge of mutual exclusion, synchronization, interrupt handling, inter-process communication, etc.
- Enthusiastic, highly motivated, and innovative
- Self-motivated problem solver, seeks answers with a willingness to learn and work independently
- Strong verbal and technical writing skills
- Collaborates well in a multi-site, multi-geography team environment
The salary range for this position position is:
Cdn: $99,200.00 - $158,400.00
#LI-JD
Pay ranges at Ciena are designed to accommodate variations in knowledge, skills, experience, market conditions, and locations, reflecting our diverse products, industries, and lines of business. Please note that the pay range information provided in this posting pertains specifically to the primary location, which is the top location listed in case multiple locations are available.
Non-Sales employees may be eligible for a discretionary incentive bonus, while Sales employees may be eligible for a sales commission. In addition to competitive compensation, Ciena offers a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, and vision plans, participation in 401(K) (USA) & DCPP (Canada) with company matching, Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP), Employee Assistance Program (EAP), company-paid holidays, paid sick leave, and vacation time. We also comply with all applicable laws regarding Paid Family Leave and other leaves of absence.
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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.
If contacted in relation to a job opportunity, please advise Ciena of any accommodation measures you may require.