Staff Engineer — HAMR HDD Integration & Validation

WD; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

WD is seeking a Staff Engineer for the Read/Write Integration team to advance Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording drives from prototype to manufacturing. You will develop new HDD features, test across bench and production environments, and analyze large datasets to drive reliability and capacity improvements.

The role emphasizes collaboration with Firmware, Servo, Manufacturing, and Media teams, with opportunities to contribute to patents and emerging HDD technologies.

Qualifications

• PhD in Physics, Materials Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or related field.
• Experience programming in Python, R, and/or Matlab.
• Ability to read and understand C or C++ code.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills using large engineering datasets.
• Excellent collaboration, communication, and learning agility.

Responsibilities

• Develop and validate new HAMR HDD features that improve performance, reliability, and capacity.
• Test hardware across bench, drive-level, and manufacturing environments using Python, R, and MATLAB.
• Analyze manufacturing and quality data to identify trends, optimize performance, and prevent issues.
• Perform hardware failure analysis, investigate root causes, and collaborate with firmware engineers to resolve issues.
• Read and interpret C/C++ manufacturing test code to understand system behavior and troubleshoot problems.
• Collaborate with Firmware, Servo, Manufacturing, and Media teams.
• Contribute to patents and innovative technologies shaping future HDD products.

Skills

Python

R

MATLAB

C/C++

Education

PhD in Physics/Materials Science/EE/CS

Tools

Python

R

MATLAB

Job description

WD is seeking a Staff Engineer for the Read/Write Integration team to advance Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording drives from prototype to manufacturing. You will develop new HDD features, test across bench and production environments, and analyze large datasets to drive reliability and capacity improvements.

The role emphasizes collaboration with Firmware, Servo, Manufacturing, and Media teams, with opportunities to contribute to patents and emerging HDD technologies.