Standards Engineer OIF Electrical & Optical

NOKIA; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Nokia is seeking a standards professional for its Optical Networks division in San Jose, California. The successful candidate will drive innovation in defining standards for optical transport products and will collaborate with R&D and business development teams.

The role requires a degree in engineering or computer science and considerable experience in telecom product management. A passion for technology and a collaborative mindset are essential as the candidate will build trusted relationships with key industry stakeholders.

Qualifications

• 5 years of telecom product experience in network operators or equipment suppliers.
• 5 years of product management experience or consulting engineering/network architect experience.
• Excellent understanding of industry landscape and technologies.

Responsibilities

• Identify standardization strategic objectives supporting Nokia product strategies.
• Internally review and advocate standardization strategies.
• Participate in meetings with key industry standards groups.

Skills

Telecom product experience

Proficiency in optical interface technology

Excellent communication skills

Project management skills

Business acumen

Education

Degree in engineering or computer science

Graduate degree preferred

Job description

In an increasingly connected world, the pandemic has highlighted just how essential telecom networks are to keeping society running. The Network Infrastructure group is at the heart of a revolution to connectivity, pushing the boundaries to deliver more and faster network capacity to people worldwide through our ambition, innovation, and technical expertise.

Join Optical Networks division, where innovation meets scale in the AI-driven data center era. With the recent acquisition of Infinera, we've united two industry leaders to create an optical networking powerhouse—combining cutting‑edge technology with proven leadership to redefine the future of connectivity.

Infinera is now part of the Nokia Corporation and its subsidiaries. When you apply, the information you share will be handled with care and used only for recruitment purposes within the group.

Nokia is a global leader in the technologies that connect people and things. Powered by the innovation of Bell Labs and Nokia Technologies, the company is at the forefront of creating and licensing the technologies that are increasingly at the heart of our connected lives.

With operations in more than 130 countries, Nokia is the first truly global communications solutions provider, offering the most complete end‑to‑end portfolio of solutions and services in the industry. The Optical Networking Business Unit is the world’s number one producer of high‑speed optical networking equipment with over 600 customers worldwide. The Nokia 1830 PSS team is expanding and looking for highly motivated professionals to join us to further enhance network flexibility and operational automation in a very fast growing and competitive environment.

As an integral part of the Optical Networks standards team, a self‑motivated, accountable, results‑oriented standards professional will drive innovation in defining standards for the features and functions of leading‑edge optical transport products as part of the Nokia optical transport networking portfolio, and work with R&D and regional business development teams to create networks using those products.

Responsibilities

• Work with Product Line Managers (PLMs) and R&D teams to identify standardization strategic objectives that support Nokia product strategies. Develop and regularly review standardization strategies relevant to Optical Transport Infrastructure, Ethernet, and Physical Layer topics consistent with Nokia product directions.
• Develop, internally review, and externally advocate for contributions developed to support the standardization strategies. Provide damage control regarding standardization initiatives of Nokia competitors that are incompatible with Nokia product directions.
• Participate in meetings of ITU‑T Study Group 15, and as necessary, the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) PLL tracks, the IEEE 802.3 Working Group, and OpenROADM or other MSAs.
• Provide internal reports and briefings on standardization results, progress and directions to R&D and PLM.
• Build trusted relationships and be able to influence key executives.

Qualifications

• Degree in computer, electrical, software, or systems engineering, or physics, computer science, or relevant related field is required, graduate degree preferred.
• 5 years of telecom product experience in either network operator or equipment supplier.
• 5 years of product management experience, or consulting engineering/network architect experience with a demonstrated understanding of market requirements for Optical, Ethernet and/or IP/MPLS networking solutions.
• Business acumen.
• Proficient with optical interface technology, in particular high‑order modulation, coherent detection, CWDM, DWDM and knowledgeable in current and emerging standards in these domains (OIF, ITU‑T, OpenROADM).
• Basic understanding of transport network technologies (OTN, high‑speed Ethernet).
• Excellent understanding of the industry landscape, including customers, potential partners, direct competitors and competing and emerging technologies and architectures.
• Experience and demonstrated ability in identifying changing business models, and ability to associate these to changing solution/product and architecture requirement.
• Ability to work collaboratively across many teams within the organization including business development/technical sales, product management, marketing, R&D.
• Solid technical and operational understanding of service provider networking environments.
• Excellent written and verbal communications skills: ability to communicate technology strategy and architecture approach to engineers, executives, and customers.
• Ability and flexibility to develop and deliver presentations to a wide variety of audiences during standards meetings, conferences, trade shows.
• Strong consulting skills to work with both external and internal customers and suppliers, sometimes for understanding and sometimes for driving product and network architectures, features, constraints, and limits.
• Proficiency in conflict management and negotiation, with abilities to influence and lead others.
• Strong organizational and project management skills; autonomy and ability to manage competing demands.
• High energy; willingness to work in a fast‑paced and dynamic environment.
• Ability to work in both high‑level, strategic context and pragmatic execution of specific projects with practical constraints on network functional requirements and schedules and product or feature constraints.
• Ability to forge trusted relationships using an open and respectful communication and collaboration style.