Position: Customer Solutions Specialist

Location: Ottawa

Salary: $85,000 - $110,000

Vacancy Status: This posting is for new vacancies. We are hiring for 2 positions.

Use of AI in Hiring: No, we do not use AI in screening/selection

Security Clearance: Candidates must have, or be eligible to obtain, Secret-level security clearance.

The Opportunity:

As a Customer Solutions Specialist, you will be at the heart of Canadian innovation - serving as the trusted technical advisor for CENGN's customers. From onboarding through project completion, you will guide Canadian companies through the validation and adoption of their solutions within CENGN's real-world living lab infrastructure, providing technical guidance on the latest networking and cloud technologies to support their commercialization journey.

And the best part? Every engagement is a two-way experience, while you bring a genuine desire to see customers succeed, you will gain invaluable insight from the brilliant minds and groundbreaking ideas that are shaping the future of Canadian innovation.

Location of work and travel

The successful candidate will work remotely from their home office in the Ottawa area, with the flexibility to assist customers on-site with the integration of their solutions at CENGN’s data centre.

Key Responsibilities:

Customer Engagement & Guidance

- Serve as the primary technical point of contact for customers throughout their project lifecycle
- Review and assess project scope alignment with funding program using defined guidelines
- Build and maintain strong customer relationships by understanding their innovation goals and technical requirements
- Translate complex technical concepts into clear, actionable guidance for customers at varying levels of expertise

Lab and Project Delivery

- Lead the end-to-end implementation of customer validation and adoption projects within CENGN's living lab infrastructure
- Collaborate with customers to define project scope, technical requirements, and success criteria
- Support customers in proving their innovations work within real-world infrastructure environments




- Identify and work with CENGN’s technical colleagues to resolve challenges throughout the project lifecycle to ensure successful outcomes

Technical Advisory

- Assess customer technical environments and recommend solutions aligned with CENGN's infrastructure capabilities
- Stay current with industry trends (5G, AI, cybersecurity, defense innovation) to offer relevant and timely guidance to customers
- Provide expert advice on networking, cloud, and emerging technologies to support customers

Collaboration

- Contribute to the development of reusable frameworks and opportunities to improve future customer engagements
- Document project progress, technical configurations, and test results to support knowledge sharing and continuous improvement
- Collaborate with our lab partners to evaluate opportunities to support customers
- Work cross-functionally with internal CENGN teams to ensure customer project success

Key Competencies/Qualifications:

- Demonstrated experience designing end-to-end solutions that integrate networking, application, and data architecture components
- Robust systems-thinking mindset with the ability to design creative, scalable architectures from ambiguous requirements
- Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, including the ability to explain architectural decisions to technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Demonstrated ability to leverage Agile methodology and associated tools to plan and track architectural delivery
- Solid understanding of containerization, virtualization, and orchestration principles and how they inform infrastructure design decisions
- Strong grasp of IP networking architecture and routing design principles
- Understanding of wireless and 5G network architectures
- Familiarity with Linux-based infrastructure environments and how OS choice impacts system architecture

Nice to have:





- Proven experience in system design and operations of highly available and distributed systems using containerization
- Awareness of hyperscalers offering from AWS, Azure, GCP or alternative public clouds
- Familiarity of security best practices for cloud environments, including IAM, encryption, and network security
- Knowledge of infrastructure and application validation with traffic and load generation tools such as jMeter, Locust, TRex, IXIA or similar.
- Familiarity with automation using one or more of the following automation tools or languages: Ansible, Terraform, Python or Go

Education and Experience:

- Bachelor's degree in computer engineering or equivalent experience, with a business focus
- 3 to 6 years of experience, ideally in a customer-focused and technical integration setting
- Additional experience in AI or the defense sector would be considered an asset

Languages:

- English oral, reading, and writing
- French oral, reading, and writing or any other language would be considered an asset

CENGN is Canada’s Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks. Our mission is to drive innovation and adoption of advanced networking technologies in Canada through our Living Labs and advanced networking infrastructure, technical expertise, talent development, and partner ecosystem, enabling the digital transformation and competitiveness of Canadian industry and the commercial growth of Canadian digital technology solutions.

With the digital transformation opportunity valued at over $200 billion in Canada, it is clear the recent competitive landscape is being driven by digital innovation and the ability to integrate this technology across industries. Join our team, as we work with our ecosystem of technology, innovation, government, and academic partners to build Living Lab testing infrastructure and deliver services that accelerate the testing, validation, demonstration, commercialization and adoption of digital innovation across Canada.

Pay: $85,000.00-$110,000.00 per year

Benefits:

- Company events
- Dental care
- Extended health care
- Paid time off
- RRSP match
- Vision care

Location:

- Ottawa, ON (preferred)

Work Location: Hybrid remote in Ottawa, ON

📌 Customer Solutions Specialist (Ottawa)
🏢 CENGN - (Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks)
📍 Ottawa