Photonics Software Developer Co-op (January 2025) – 8-12 months
City : Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Category : Interns, Students & Temporary
Industry : Telecommunications
Employer : Ciena
Ciena is committed to our people-first philosophy. Our teams enjoy a culture focused on prioritizing a personalized and flexible work environment that empowers an individual’s passions, growth, wellbeing and belonging. We’re a technology company that leads with our humanity—driving our business priorities alongside meaningful social, community, and societal impact.
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Why Ciena?
- We’re a company rooted in people—seeking to create a vibrant and inclusive environment, where everyone feels they can belong.
- Accelerate your career path by gaining hands-on experience and exposure to the latest technology. Our interns and graduates work on real projects in real time in world class labs. Be a part of tomorrow’s future – today.
- Mentoring. Networking. Leadership Opportunities. We recognize that the learning doesn’t stop when you leave school - we champion a team environment for development and provide the tools to achieve success.
- We are big proponents of life-work integration. Our people make a big difference at Ciena, but we want to shine light on their differences outside of working hours too. CienaCares supports non-profit causes important to employees by matching employee financial contributions and dedicating time for volunteering.
The Opportunity:
8 month work term (preferred): January – August 2025
4 month work term: January – April 2025
12 month work term: January – December 2025
How You Will Contribute:
As an embedded software developer in a dynamic team environment, you will help enhance the quality of best-in-class optical networking products. The team develops leading-edge photonics software for the RLS platform, pushing boundaries in optical innovation.
- You will be responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining automated test cases which play a key role in ensuring the quality of optical networks using the RLS platform
- You will participate in the full software development lifecycle, collaborating with cross-functional teams, designers, produce verification and release management teams
- You will participate in group design discussions to discuss solutions to problems, or ideas for feature enhancements
- You will work in an agile development environment, producing high quality deliverables in rapid development cycles
- You will identify software performance improvements through test driven development, automated unit testing, and comprehensive integration testing
What Does Ciena Expect of You?
- A sense of urgency – what’s important to the customer is equally important to you. You make getting things done a priority.
- Integrity – you hold yourself to the highest level of personal and professional standards of conduct.
- A commitment to innovation – you continually seek to learn, understand new technologies and ever-changing market conditions, and endeavour to apply that knowledge to Ciena’s advantage.
- You embrace change – thriving in a diverse environment of ever-changing priorities and sometimes stressful situations.
- The flexibility to work independently with minimal supervision as well as part of a broader team.
The Must Haves:
- Working towards completion of a bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer engineering, software engineering, or computer science
- Foundational knowledge of C/C++ programming
- Excellent written and oral communication skills
- Enthusiastic, self-motivated, team player, problem solver and ability to multi-task
Assets:
- Experience developing software for embedded systems or telecommunications products
- Design and development tools such as Git, Bitbucket, Jira, Confluence, GDB
- Unit test frameworks such as Google Test
- YANG modeling language and toolchains
Compensation and Benefits
The pay range for this position is $24.50-33.00/hr CAD
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.
In addition to competitive compensation, Ciena offers students access to the Employee Assistance Program (EAP), company-paid holidays, paid sick leave, and vacation pay as required by applicable laws.
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.