Ciena’s Gurgaon Centre will supplement and work collaboratively with Ciena’s existing research and development organization in North America. Ciena India will be led by Neeraj Gulati as Vice President and Managing Director and Dimple Amin as Vice President of Engineering.

“Our Gurgaon development centre will enable us to capitalize on the significantly strong engineering resources in this region, and will establish Ciena in one of the fastest growing communications equipment markets in the world,” said Neeraj Gulati, vice president and managing director, Ciena India, about launching the Centre. “Working closely with our North American-based development efforts, Ciena India will play a critical role in furthering Ciena’s technology and market leadership, and in supporting our network specialist approach to delivering carrier-class solutions to customers across the globe.”

Known for “practical innovation” since its founding in 1992, Ciena is a leading supplier of application-focused communications networking equipment, software and services to telecommunications service providers, cable operators, government and enterprise customers across the globe. A worldwide staff of 1,500 provides network solutions for more than two-thirds of the world’s largest service providers including AT&T, British Telecom, Cable & Wireless, France Telecom, Korea Telecom, MCI, Qwest, SingTel, Telmex and Verizon. In India, Reliance Infocom and Tata Teleservices are leveraging advanced optical Ciena networks, gained through the acquisitions of TyCom Ltd. and FLAG Telecom respectively.

“The India centre will be an addition to the five Ciena establishments in the world equipped with advanced design, development and testing laboratories,” said Dimple Amin, vice president, engineering, Ciena India. “Ciena is regarded as a pioneer in networking technology worldwide, with a number of industry and technology firsts to its name, proof of Ciena’s commitment to research and development. We are confident that the Gurgaon centre will serve as a strong addition to Ciena’s R&D capabilities.”

Ciena’s Gurgaon R&D Centre will focus on technologies such as storage extension and optical transport, including ultra long-haul, long-haul, regional and metropolitan applications, as well as multiservice switching, broadband access and network management.

“A career at Ciena India will provide engineers the opportunity to collaborate with Ciena’s top notch engineering teams in North America on research and development work that addresses all stages of the product life cycle,” Gulati added. “Moreover, the opportunity to work on true carrier-class technology is a privilege for dedicated engineers anywhere in the world, and we expect that talented engineering professionals in this region will be delighted at the opportunity.”

Ciena initially will recruit engineers with five or more years of experience from across India, especially technology-savvy hubs like Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Bangalore, Chennai and Pune. After a period of training, recruits will help hire, mentor and manage the next wave of engineers. At a later stage, Ciena expects to hire both fresh graduates from leading Indian technology institutes as well as additional experienced engineers to work with products at all stages and complexities of development.

Ciena is currently in its first stage of recruitment in India to staff the new Gurgaon facility, and is looking for engineers with the following areas of specialization: FPGA, Digital, RF and mechanical design; software for embedded systems, applications development, and network management; system integration and validation test; PCB CAD; compliance and reliability. There will also be opportunities for technical writers, engineering lab technicians, and configuration management specialists.