VP, Information Technology Strategy Leader

As the global leader in high-speed connectivity, Ciena builds the critical infrastructure powering the AI era. We’re a technology company shaping the future of networking, guided by innovation, integrity, and collaboration. Through development opportunities, meaningful work, and flexibility, Ciena supports growth and well-being—on and off the job. Connect with a career that matters.

.In this role, you will:

• Strategic Technology Leadership
  • Define and own Ciena's enterprise tech stack north star vision, strategy, and roadmap, aligned to business priorities and growth ambitions.
  • Partner with Ciena’s R&D organization to shape the shared technology stack and foundational engineering ecosystem, aligning enterprise and product engineering on development platforms, architecture patterns, developer tooling, DevSecOps, CI/CD, observability, and reusable capabilities that improve speed, quality, security, and scale.
  • Drive the next innovation agenda by identifying, evaluating, and adopting emerging technologies (AI, automation, cloud-native platforms) that create competitive advantage.
  • Balance innovation with pragmatism: ensure every architectural decision optimizes for cost efficiency, time-to-value, scalability, and long-term resilience.
  • Serve as a trusted advisor to the CIO, CISO and business executives on technology investment, platform strategy, and modernization priorities.
• Enterprise Technology Governance
  • Establish and govern enterprise technology standards, reference models, and design principles across applications, data, integration, and infrastructure.
  • Oversee technology choice across Ciena's core enterprise platforms, including deep expertise in Salesforce, Oracle ERP, Workday, and the integration fabric connecting them. Balance buy vs. build choices aligned with business objectives.
  • Drive platform simplification and rationalization to reduce technical debt and total cost of ownership.
  • Partner with data & AI, security, and governance teams to embed responsible AI principles into every solution.
• Integration Center of Excellence
  • Lead the Integration COE as the backbone connecting Ciena's enterprise platforms, data, and ecosystems.
  • Define and govern the enterprise integration strategy including API-led architecture, event-driven patterns on simplified iPaaS platforms (Boomi or Oracle Integration Cloud).
  • Build reusable integration patterns, accelerators, and a robust API catalog to drive speed-to-market and reduce duplication.
  • Ensure integrations across Salesforce, Oracle ERP, Workday, and partner ecosystems are scalable, observable, secure, and resilient.
  • Drive integration governance, lifecycle management, and FinOps discipline across the integration portfolio.
• Enterprise Engineering Enablement
  • Build and operate the foundational engineering tools and practices that enable productivity, quality, and speed across the enterprise.
  • RPA & Intelligent Automation platforms
  • GitHub and source control standards
  • Code standards, peer review, and quality gates
  • CI/CD pipelines and DevOps tooling
  • Automated testing frameworks (unit, integration, regression, performance)
  • Developer experience, observability, and platform engineering practices
• Business Experience
  • Lead a group of UX/UI specialists to design and deliver consistent, intuitive, and delightful business experiences across Ciena's internal and customer-facing applications.
  • Champion human-centered design principles and ensure UX is embedded early in every architecture and product decision.

What You Bring

Required Qualifications:

• 15+ years of progressive technology leadership experience, with 5+ years leading enterprise architecture at scale in a global, complex organization.
• Software engineering and R&D leadership background, with the technical depth and credibility to partner effectively with product engineering leaders and influence technology-stack, platform, and engineering-tooling decisions.
• Proven track record of leading enterprise-wide modernization and innovation programs that delivered measurable business outcomes.
• Hands-on depth and architectural leadership across Salesforce, Oracle ERP (Cloud or EBS) or Boomi ecosystems.
• Demonstrated experience building and scaling AI/ML architecture practices in an enterprise setting.
• Proven experience leading an Integration COE and modern integration platforms (MuleSoft, Boomi, Oracle Integration Cloud, Kafka, or equivalent).
• Experience standing up enterprise engineering capabilities — RPA, DevOps, CI/CD, GitHub, automated testing, code quality.
• Track record of leading or partnering with UX/design organizations to elevate user experience.
• Deep fluency in cloud architecture (Azure, AWS, GCP), integration patterns (API-led, event-driven, iPaaS), data architecture, and security-by-design.
• Strong grasp of AI/GenAI architecture patterns, including LLM integration, RAG, agentic frameworks, and responsible AI governance.
• Experience with architecture frameworks (TOGAF, Zachman, or equivalent) and modern delivery methods (Agile, Lean, SAFe).
• Strategic thinker who can translate business priorities into technical strategy and explain technical strategy to business leaders.
• Pragmatic innovator who balances ambition with execution discipline.
• Strong executive presence: able to influence at the C-suite and Board level.
• Collaborative, low-ego, and energized by building high-performing teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field required.
• Advanced degree (MS, MBA) preferred.

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.