Ops NPI Project Manager

Summary:

VIAVI (NASDAQ: VIAV) is a global provider of network test, monitoring and assurance solutions for telecommunications, cloud, enterprises, first responders, military, aerospace, and railway. VIAVI is also a leader in light management technologies for 3D sensing, anti-counterfeiting, consumer electronics, industrial, automotive, government and aerospace applications.

We are the people behind the products that help keep the world connected at home, school, work, at play, and everywhere in between. VIAVI employees are passionate about supporting customer success and we welcome people who bring their best every day to the company – to question, to collaborate and to push for solutions that will delight our customers.

Duties & Responsibilities:

Summary

VIAVI’s Production & Lab Testing (PLT) division in Ottawa designs and manufactures precision optical test and measurement instruments — the systems that R&D engineers and production lines worldwide rely on to develop, qualify, and manufacture optical components, passive devices, transceivers, and high-speed optical interconnects. The PLT portfolio spans modular optical test platforms, application-specific integrated test solutions, benchtop inspection systems, and a growing ecosystem of plug-in modules and accessories, all serving a market undergoing some of the most rapid technology evolution in the history of fiber optics.

The demand driving that evolution — AI infrastructure buildout, coherent optics at 400G, 800G, and beyond, the proliferation of new wavelength bands, hollow core fiber, and next-generation passive devices and ROADMs — is translating directly into an expanding and accelerating NPI pipeline for PLT. New product introductions are increasing. Product variants — new wavelength configurations, updated module generations, form factor adaptations — are multiplying. And component end-of-life events and critical supply shortages are forcing reactive redesign projects that compete for the same Operations resources as scheduled NPI. The team and the process are established and capable; the problem is that the volume of concurrent projects is ratcheting up faster than the current headcount can absorb.

We are adding an Ops NPI Project Manager to carry the additional load. This role is the central Operations point of contact for an assigned set of PLT NPI projects — managing the planning, execution, and cross-functional coordination needed to bring new and updated optical test instruments from R&D into volume production on schedule, on budget, and at the quality the market demands.

Scope and Context

Optical test instruments for today’s market are precision photonic systems with demanding manufacturing requirements: optical alignment and coupling tolerances measured in microns, contamination sensitivity that can compromise measurement accuracy, calibration procedures traceable to national standards, and software-hardware integration that must be validated as a system before any instrument ships. These are not products where manufacturing process development is a straightforward exercise, and they are not products where a schedule slip in test system development goes unnoticed.

At the same time, the pace of fiber technology evolution means that product generations are shortening, variant counts are growing, and the line between a new product and a meaningful update to an existing one is increasingly blurred. Managing this pipeline requires a PM who can hold the rigor of a structured NPI process while staying agile enough to handle the volume and variety of projects that the market is generating.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

NPI Project Management

• Lead the Operations elements of the PLT NPI process for an assigned portfolio of projects — from project initiation through production launch, first customer shipment, and into volume production.

• Represent Operations on the cross-functional NPI project team; hold the line on Operations readiness requirements while maintaining productive working relationships with R&D and Product Line Management.

• Drive integrated project planning that makes work commitments, dependencies, and critical path visible across Operations and the extended team. In a high-volume NPI environment, the interdependencies across concurrent projects are themselves a risk that must be actively managed.

• Lead the Operations team to execute to the requirements of the Product Development Process (PDP), including all functional deliverables required to support project phase gates.

• Own project expense forecasting — capital and operational — and performance to plan; build and defend capital requests for test systems, tooling, and lab infrastructure.

• Drive capacity planning and production ramp planning, with attention to the optical assembly and calibration processes that are typically the throughput-limiting steps in PLT manufacturing.

Managing Scale: Variants, EOL, and a Growing Pipeline

• Manage a concurrent portfolio of NPI projects that includes new product introductions, wavelength and configuration variants of existing products, and reactive redesign projects driven by component end-of-life or critical supply shortages — each with its own schedule, resource demands, and stakeholder expectations.

• Maintain clear visibility into Operations capacity and capability against the full project pipeline, surfacing resource conflicts and tradeoff decisions to leadership before they become schedule impacts.

• Apply structured triage to variant and EOL-driven projects: not every reactive project warrants full NPI rigor, and not every “minor variant” is as simple as it appears. Assess scope accurately and plan accordingly.

• Coordinate across projects to identify shared tooling, test system, or supply chain elements that can reduce per-project cost and schedule risk when managed at the portfolio level.

Manufacturing Launch and Production Ramp

• Ensure all manufacturing requirements for production launch and ramp are met: DFx reviews executed at appropriate phase gates, supply chain and process development completed concurrently with product development, and manufacturing processes validated prior to pilot build.

• Drive supply chain readiness with particular attention to the long-lead, specialty optical components — precision laser sources, optical switches, calibrated fiber assemblies, specialized optical coatings — that are characteristic of PLT products and that create disproportionate schedule risk when not managed proactively.

• Own the manufacturing transfer package and the technical readiness criteria a production line must meet before release, whether at an internal VIAVI factory or a contract manufacturing partner.

• Coordinate build schedules, factory capacity, and technical readiness; serve as the Operations escalation point for technical issues affecting production during ramp.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Coordinate and manage a diverse Operations team including test engineering, manufacturing engineering, and supply chain; align requirements and deliverables across the extended internal team (R&D, PLM, Service, Finance) and external partners (CM, suppliers).

• Partner with R&D from concept phase forward on design reviews, DFx feedback, prototype and pilot builds, and design transfer. Push Design for Manufacturability and Design for Test requirements early.

• Maintain effective working relationships across time zones and functions as needed in a globally distributed product development environment.

Risk Management and Stakeholder Communication

• Proactively identify project risks — technical, schedule, supply chain, resource — develop mitigation strategies, and drive resolution before they become launch threats.

• Provide clear, regular communication to stakeholders and senior leadership on project status, progress against milestones, and resource utilization.

• Conduct post-mortem analysis of completed NPI projects and drive lessons learned into improved processes, tools, and planning practices for the team.

Pre-Requisites / Skills / Experience Requirements:

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Optical Engineering, Physics, or a related technical field.

Experience and Technical Skills

• 5+ years of NPI project management experience in a cross-functional environment (R&D, Operations, PLM, Service), with demonstrated ownership of Operations deliverables through a structured phase-gate process.

• 5+ years of project management experience leading teams to achieve aggressive cost, quality, and schedule targets in an electronics, photonics, or electro-optical product environment.

• Demonstrated ability to manage a portfolio of concurrent NPI projects with shared resources, inter-project dependencies, and competing priorities.

• Sufficient technical depth in optical or photonic hardware to be credible with R&D and engineering teams: able to assess the manufacturing implications of a design decision, evaluate the realism of a proposed schedule, and identify when a “minor variant” is hiding a substantive engineering problem.

• Experience managing teams in a geographically dispersed environment, across time zones and cultures.

• Strong understanding of the CM environment through direct experience managing CM operations or successfully transferring products into contract manufacturing.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills; able to convey technical project status clearly to both engineering and executive audiences, and to facilitate alignment across functions that have different priorities.

• Demonstrated self-motivation and ownership.

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct experience with optical test and measurement instruments, photonic component manufacturing, or passive optical device production.

• Familiarity with the technology trends shaping the fiber optics market: coherent optics, 400G/800G/1.6T optical interconnects, DWDM and ROADM evolution, hollow core fiber.

• Experience managing component end-of-life (EOL) and supply shortage-driven redesign projects alongside a scheduled NPI pipeline.

• PMP or equivalent project management certification.

• Familiarity with ERP and PLM systems for BOM, routing, and change management.

How Success Is Measured

• Assigned NPI projects launch on schedule, with manufacturing processes qualified and production systems validated at pilot run.

• The concurrent project portfolio is managed coherently: resource conflicts are surfaced and resolved early, inter-project dependencies do not create unplanned schedule impacts, and leadership has clear visibility into the pipeline at all times.

• First-pass yield and test escape rates meet or exceed targets at launch and through production ramp.

• EOL-driven and variant projects are scoped accurately and executed efficiently, without consuming disproportionate Operations resources relative to their commercial value.

If you have what it takes to push boundaries and seize opportunities, apply to join our team today.

VIAVI Solutions is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer — minorities/females/veterans/veterans/persons with disabilities.

Job Posting Pay Range:

69,888

to

129,792

Exceptional qualifications, experience and location may impact salary. VIAVI offers a competitive benefits package that includes paid time off, health, life and disability insurance, 401(k), and a bonus program.