Job Description

At Western Digital, our vision is to power global innovation and push the boundaries of technology to make what you thought was once impossible, possible.

At our core, Western Digital is a company of problem solvers. People achieve extraordinary things given the right technology. For decades, we’ve been doing just that—our technology helped people put a man on the moon and capture the first-ever picture of a black hole.

We offer an expansive portfolio of technologies, HDDs, and platforms for business, creative professionals, and consumers alike under our Western Digital®, WD®, WD_BLACK™, and SanDisk® Professional brands.

We are a key partner to some of the largest and highest-growth organizations in the world. From enabling systems to make cities safer and more connected, to powering the data centers behind many of the world’s biggest companies and hyperscale cloud providers, to meeting the massive and ever-growing data storage needs of the AI era, Western Digital is fueling a brighter, smarter future.

Today’s exceptional challenges require your unique skills. Together, we can build the future of data storage.

Job Description

We are seeking a world-class Principal System Engineer to join our team developing a wide variety of advanced next-generation high performance storage system enclosures for the OEM and data center marketplace. You will have demonstrated leadership ability executing complex programs and an understanding of the who, what and how of system development. You will have strong skills and experience in the computer server and storage industry including familiarization with embedded storage processors, storage protocols, and servers. This is a high-impact, high visibility opportunity for the right individual with superior technical skills, good project management abilities, and an enthusiasm for success.

This is a technical leadership position that requires and individual that excels at leadership and collaboration. As a leader, the candidate must be able to coordinate and guide the activities of other team members. The successful candidate will be a role model for other members of the team, demonstrating the transparency, commitment and accountability that is expected from all team members. Strong interpersonal communication skills are a must.

Essential Responsibilities

• Provide multi-disciplinary technical leadership for the development of storage enclosures and storage servers consisting of mechanical chassis, hard drives, fans, power supplies, firmware, and printed circuit board assemblies with high-speed communication interfaces
• Develop System Specifications starting from customer and architectural requirements, providing detailed mechanical, electrical, functional, and environmental specifications and requirements for all major subsystems, interfaces between subsystems, and external interfaces
• Develop product requirements for manufacturability and engage with the manufacturing team to ensure the product can be effectively manufactured
• Coordinate cross-functional design reviews and oversee the development of system and subsystem verification plans
• Lead system integration activities during the prototype phase and oversee root cause resolution of specification and design defects
• Collaborate effectively cross-functionally with FW, EE, ME, product management, program management, verification engineering and manufacturing engineering to ensure that the designed system meets all product and regulatory requirements and can be effectively verified, manufactured and tested
• Assist with training the sales team, work directly with early customers, and provide technical support to the NPI team during the production ramp
• Provide mentorship to other SE engineers as needed

Qualifications

• BS or MS degree in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering (or related field)
• 8+ years of experience with storage and server product systems design & development
• Very familiar with Computer architecture and components including motherboards, memory, and x86 CPUs
• Experience with systems integration activities
• Experience with Hard drive and flash-based devices
• Familiar with High-speed communication protocols such as PCIe, DDR, Ethernet and SAS/SATA, and NVMe
• Server management experience including UEFI, BIOS, BMC, IPMI, Redfish, and OS/driver installation
• Current knowledge of the latest networking standards and best practices
• Expertise in board level and system level troubleshooting
• Expert understanding of the use of test equipment such as analyzers, high-speed real-time scopes, pattern generators and BERT equipment
• Demonstrated ability in creative problem solving and innovation
• Strong team player, effective communication skills, and highly motivated
• Knowledge of agile development and self-managed development teams from design to production

Additional Information

Equal Employment Opportunity
Western Digital is committed to providing equal opportunities to all applicants and employees and will not discriminate against any applicant or employee based on their race, color, ancestry, religion (including religious dress and grooming standards), sex (including pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, breastfeeding or related medical conditions), gender (including a person’s gender identity, gender expression, and gender-related appearance and behavior, whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth), age, national origin, sexual orientation, medical condition, marital status (including domestic partnership status), physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, protected medical and family care leave, Civil Air Patrol status, military and veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics. We also prohibit harassment of any individual on any of the characteristics listed above. Our non-discrimination policy applies to all aspects of employment. We comply with the laws and regulations set forth in the “ Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal ” poster. Our pay transparency policy is available here:  Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination Provision (dol.gov)

Western Digital thrives on the power and potential of diversity. As a global company, we believe the most effective way to embrace the diversity of our customers and communities is to mirror it from within. We believe the fusion of various perspectives results in the best outcomes for our employees, our company, our customers, and the world around us. We are committed to an inclusive environment where every individual can thrive through a sense of belonging, respect and contribution.

Western Digital is committed to offering opportunities to applicants with disabilities and ensuring all candidates can successfully navigate our careers website and our hiring process. Please contact us at [email protected] to advise us of your accommodation request. In your email, please include a description of the specific accommodation you are requesting as well as the job title and requisition number of the position for which you are applying.

Based on our experience, we anticipate that the application deadline will be 5/20/2025 (3 months from posting), although we reserve the right to close the application process sooner if we hire an applicant for this position before the application deadline. If we are not able to hire someone from this role before the application deadline, we will update this posting with a new anticipated application deadline

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Compensation & Benefits Details

• An employee’s pay position within the salary range may be based on several factors including but not limited to (1) relevant education;

  qualifications

  ; certifications; and experience; (2) skills, ability, knowledge of the job; (3) performance, contribution and results; (4) geographic location; (5) shift; (6) internal and external equity; and (7) business and organizational needs.
• The salary range is what we believe to be the range of possible compensation for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and this range is only applicable for jobs to be performed in California, Colorado, New York or remote jobs that can be performed in California, Colorado and New York. This range may be modified in the future.
• You will be eligible to participate in Western Digital’s Short-Term Incentive (STI) Plan, which provides incentive awards based on Company and individual performance. Depending on your role and your performance, you may be eligible to participate in our annual Long-Term Incentive (LTI) program, which consists of restricted stock units (RSUs) or cash equivalents, pursuant to the terms of the LTI plan. Please note that not all roles are eligible to participate in the LTI program, and not all roles are eligible for equity under the LTI plan. RSU awards are also available to eligible new hires, subject to Western Digital’s Standard Terms and Conditions for Restricted Stock Unit Awards.
• We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid vacation time; paid sick leave; medical/dental/vision insurance; life, accident and disability insurance; tax-advantaged flexible spending and health savings accounts; employee assistance program; other voluntary benefit programs such as supplemental life and AD&D, legal plan, pet insurance, critical illness, accident and hospital indemnity; tuition reimbursement; transit; the Applause Program, employee stock purchase plan, and the Western Digital Savings 401(k) Plan.
• Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole discretion unless and until paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole discretion, consistent with the law.

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