Low pay. Constant comparison with the industry average, yet employees are told that Ciena is better than the rest, raking in money and taking away market share.....I wonder who actually benefits from all the success.
Mediocre bonuses, during the times that the company is doing quite well, or so they say at least.
Low or pretty much non-existent raises. Lots of folks have gone without raises and bonuses for up to 10 years prior to 2015 and the issue still persists.
Company enticed employees to write reviews on Glassdoor for merchandise??... Skews public rating and perception of the company with as little investment as possible: not many people who would give fewer than 3 stars would go for such an offer. Prime example of how the company is trying to improve the image by doing/spending as little as possible rather than investing properly into their employees. Major fail in my eyes.
Dry/stale culture, although somewhat group dependent. Quite a few people have lunches at their desks. Some come and leave without much interaction. Senior heavy environment, average age must be close to 50.
IT needs quite a bit of improvement, lots of time lost on dealing with computer/network issues or updates. Most of it is outsourced...
Overall feels as a government place with inefficiencies, people unable to make up their minds or put the effort to provide what's needed upfront, lots of politics, lower than average pay, and unlike working for the government, weak retirement package. People work to or pass their retirement age, while government employees of the same age would be already retired for a decade or more.
Constant rounds of layoffs.....must be to keep employees in check. I thought the company is doing really well these days.
Quite a few arrogant and/or insecure senior designers who seem to be stuck in teenage years mentality wise...They must have gone through tough times during Nortel and high-tech bust, plus all the looming layoffs every year. They appear to be traumatized, damaged. They are very easily agitated and offended if you point out with good intentions something that may be a problem or can be improved in their design. Act as though you are trying to get them fired. On the other hand they are always ready to pop in out of nowhere and attempt to criticize your work. If you are not doing it Ciena's way (likely Nortel's way), you are doing it wrong and you must not know anything. Apparently the rest of the industry is full of fools and only Ciena's honoured engineers know the way. Expect to have your graduate studies or work experience to be quickly discarded as you will be 'shown' the 'right' way to do things.
Lack of guidance/coaching within the team. Mostly same senior engineers try to keep the know-hows to themselves, only let some out to try to show off that they know more than you rather than for mentoring purposes. Some attempts were made to fix this within Ciena with career development and internal mentoring program....I guess people have been trying to find a way to fill the void but I don't think it addresses the core of the issue.
Lots of unnecessary and drawn out meetings. People don't use them effectively, often pushing their opinion after the fact when it's too late.
New buildings are a mixed bag. Smoke and mirrors about how it will be great and Ciena is investing in their employees. Better sound insulation, despite lower cubicle walls, 'better' open office space. Lots of engineers/scientists questioned the design and in the end the place is not conducive to productive engineering work with too much openness, noise and lack of privacy. This may work for sales/marketing people but not for scientists/engineers. As some other reviewers pointed out, lack of meeting rooms contributes to noise issue as well.
Possibility of work from home being touted everywhere, but when you actually ask for it you might get a solid no.
There were no sick days in the past, great that Ciena now has 5 a year ..... after years of posting good profits.
Have heard of cut throat cost reductions and supplier negotiation tactics...not my understanding of high integrity.
Younger, capable and ambitions engineers/scientists appear to be leaving elsewhere given the lack of career progression, low pay, arrogant senior Nortel's staff and quite a bit of unfulfilling overhead to deal with on daily basis.
Advice to potential hires: do not accept lower pay than you think you will be comfortable with in 5 year time, and make sure the work will aid your career development in some way. You may not see a raise in many years, while dealing with many unfulfilling tasks.
