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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Optical NCC Tier II Technician

💰 $ - $

🎯 Role Definition

The Optical NCC (Network Control Center) Tier II Technician is a mid-level operations professional responsible for detecting, isolating and restoring optical transport and fiber services across DWDM, ROADM and OTN platforms. This role works shifts in a 24/7 NOC environment, uses both remote Element Management Systems and hands-on test equipment (OTDR, Optical Spectrum Analyzer, power meters), and coordinates with field crews, vendors and customers to ensure rapid incident resolution, accurate provisioning and reliable capacity management. The ideal candidate blends deep optical transport knowledge, disciplined ticket lifecycle management, and clear customer-facing communication.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • NOC / Network Operations Technician (Tier I)
  • Field Fiber Technician / Fiber Splicing Technician
  • Junior Transmission or Service Assurance Technician

Advancement To:

  • Senior Optical NOC Technician / Tier III Technician
  • Transmission / Optical Network Engineer
  • NOC Shift Lead or Operations Supervisor

Lateral Moves:

  • Field Services / Installation & Commissioning Technician
  • Service Assurance or Customer Escalation Engineer

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Monitor alarms, performance counters and transport link health across DWDM, ROADM and OTN systems using NMS/EMS tools, quickly triaging alarm storms and correlating multi-vendor events to identify the root cause and reduce mean time to repair (MTTR).
  • Execute fault isolation on fiber and transport circuits by interpreting optical power levels, OTDR traces, connector loss values and spectrum analyzer overlays to accurately localize faults to fiber span, splice, connector or transponder equipment.
  • Manage incident tickets from detection through closure in ITSM platforms (ServiceNow, Remedy or equivalent), documenting diagnostic steps, escalations, customer communications, corrective actions and preventive recommendations to satisfy SLA and audit requirements.
  • Perform remote provisioning and configuration changes on optical line systems and transponders (provisioning wavelengths, configuring OTN paths, adjusting amplifier gains and channel assignments) using element CLI, EMS or orchestrator tools while following change control.
  • Coordinate and dispatch field crews and third-party vendors for physical fiber restoration, scheduled maintenance and emergency repairs; provide detailed troubleshooting direction, location coordinates, test thresholds and post-repair acceptance criteria.
  • Conduct acceptance testing, service turn-up and commissioning for new wavelength services and capacity upgrades including OTDR baseline captures, insertion loss/power measurements and verification of OTN/SDH/Ethernet client payloads.
  • Execute planned maintenance and firmware/hardware upgrade windows, including pre-checks, rollback plans and post-window verification to ensure minimal customer impact and adherence to maintenance notification processes.
  • Triage and remediate optical impairments such as high attenuation, chromatic dispersion impacts, polarization mode dispersion symptoms and amplifier misbias using test instruments and vendor troubleshooting guides.
  • Build and maintain accurate engineering and operations documentation including network diagrams, cut sheets, fiber route spreadsheets, acceptance test reports, runbooks and standard operating procedures for NOC and field teams.
  • Perform spectral planning and capacity forecasting for DWDM systems, identify spare channel availability, and recommend wavelength assignments or route diversity options to support sales and engineering requests.
  • Participate in cross-functional problem management and RCA (root cause analysis) post-incident reviews, contributing data, timelines, and corrective action plans to prevent recurrence.
  • Escalate complex multi-layer or multi-vendor incidents to Tier III support or vendor engineering, providing comprehensive logs, test artifacts and trace files to accelerate vendor troubleshooting.
  • Validate customer-impacting alarms and perform proactive remediation on degraded links to prevent outages, including temporary reroutes, bypass provisioning and traffic grooming as needed.
  • Maintain and calibrate optical test equipment inventories (OTDRs, OLTS, OSA, power meters), including logging serial numbers, calibration dates and ensuring gear is calibrated per vendor recommendations.
  • Implement and verify fiber restoration plans including splice-and-replace, cut detection and restoration procedures; coordinate aerial and buried repair strategies where necessary.
  • Analyze performance statistics (BER, FEC correction, optical SNR, ER) and collaborate with transport engineering to tune amplifier gains, filter settings and transponder parameters for optimized signal integrity.
  • Support interconnect and peering troubleshooting with customers and carriers by validating optical link budgets, connector types, MPO/LCLC interfaces and EVC/E-Line service mappings.
  • Create and update change requests and work orders for physical modifications (fiber reroutes, patch panel changes, re-sleeving) and ensure work is validated with post-change acceptance testing.
  • Provide weekend/holiday/overnight on-call or shift coverage as part of a 24/7 operations schedule, ensuring timely incident handling and clear handoffs between shifts.
  • Mentor Tier I NOC staff on optical test interpretation, alarm correlation and ticket documentation best practices to improve first-touch resolution rates.
  • Participate in continuous improvement initiatives to streamline NOC workflows, reduce alert noise by tuning alarm thresholds and automate repetitive tasks with scripts or OSS integrations.
  • Maintain compliance with health and safety policies for field activities, proper handling of fiber shards, and safe operation of test equipment in live environments.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Assist in vendor procurement evaluations by providing operational input on maintainability, testability and supportability of optical gear.
  • Provide input to capacity planning cycles by reporting on utilization trends, growth forecasts and potential bottlenecks.
  • Train and certify field technicians on acceptance testing procedures and NOC handoff requirements.
  • Help maintain spare-parts inventory levels for critical optical components and test equipment.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Deep understanding of DWDM systems, ROADM architectures, OTN switching and wavelength services, including vendor platforms such as Ciena, Infinera, Nokia/Coriant, Huawei, or similar.
  • Proficient using optical test equipment: OTDR, Optical Spectrum Analyzer (OSA), optical power meter, light source, and visible fault locators; able to interpret traces and spectra to make repair decisions.
  • Experience with fiber characterization and acceptance testing: insertion loss, return loss, OTDR link loss, splice and connector loss interpretation.
  • Strong troubleshooting skills across physical (fiber), photonic (amplifier, filter) and logical (OTN, Ethernet/MPLS) layers; able to correlate alarms across EMS/NMS and packet-layer monitoring.
  • Familiarity with network management and OSS tools (EMS/NMS, performance monitoring, alarm correlation tools) and command-line interfaces for element configuration.
  • Proficient in ticketing/ITSM software (ServiceNow, Remedy, JIRA) for incident, change and problem management workflows.
  • Knowledge of TCP/IP, Ethernet, MPLS and basic routing/switching concepts to validate client services over optical transport.
  • Ability to perform remote provisioning and configuration of transponders, muxponders, amplifiers and ROADMs via EMS or CLI.
  • Hands-on experience with fiber splicing concepts or coordination with splicing teams; understanding of splice enclosures, patch panels, and fiber labeling conventions.
  • Familiarity with vendor-specific troubleshooting procedures, software image management and basic scripting (e.g., Python, Bash) to automate repetitive status/health checks.
  • Understanding of SLAs, KPI metrics (MTTR, MTBF, availability) and effective reporting to stakeholders.
  • Competence with safety standards for fiber handling, RF/optical safety and confined-space protocols for pit and manhole work.
  • Experience working in 24/7 shift-based NOC environments and participating in on-call rotations.

Soft Skills

  • Clear, concise written communication for documenting incidents, producing runbooks and updating customers.
  • Strong verbal communication to guide field crews, coordinate vendor escalations and present RCA findings to technical and non-technical audiences.
  • Analytical mindset with exceptional attention to detail when interpreting test results and alarm trends.
  • Customer-focused orientation with the ability to manage stakeholder expectations during outages.
  • Ability to work calmly under pressure, prioritize multiple incidents, and maintain excellent time management during shift work.
  • Collaborative team player who mentors juniors and coordinates across operations, engineering and field functions.
  • Proactive problem-solver who looks for permanent fixes and process improvements instead of repeated firefighting.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • High school diploma or equivalent; preferred certifications in fiber optics (e.g., FOA) or telecommunications.

Preferred Education:

  • Associate degree or Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Telecommunications, Computer Science or related technical field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Electrical / Electronic Engineering
  • Telecommunications / Network Engineering
  • Optical Engineering / Photonics
  • Computer Science / Information Technology

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 3–6 years of hands-on experience in optical transport operations, NOC environments, or field fiber/fusion splicing roles.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years supporting DWDM/ROADM/OTN systems in a multi-vendor production environment, with documented experience in incident management, commissioning and vendor escalations.
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