Ciena Employee Review

I worked at Ciena

Pros – - Good salary and benefits
- Good opportunites
- Decent time off policies
- Decent working environment
- Some opportunities for growth (if the company grew)

Cons – - Terrible top management. Same senior management and Board of Directors for at least 10 years. Golden parachutes (for what?) are abundant. That is the main reason for all the "one-time charges".
- Layoffs, acquisition, layoffs, acquisition, layoffs, acquisition
- Titles are out of whack. Directors, Senior Directors, VP are flying around everywhere. Who actually works there?

Advice to Senior Management – Get some folks (and not the cronies that started with the original Ciena organization) in there and run it as "real company". CEO Gary Smith's previous job was as Vice President of Sales at the semi-public entity Intelsat. Time to change (even if it will cost the CEO's 3 million dollar exit agreement).

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend