Staff Engineer - Wafer QA & AI-Driven Quality

Western Digital Corporation; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 103,000 - 137,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Paid vacation

Medical/dental/vision insurance

Stock purchase plan

401(k) plan

Job summary

Western Digital Corporation in the San Jose area seeks a Quality Assurance Engineer to lead wafer FA, facilitate MRR/PDR reviews, and drive CAPA closures, partnering with process, equipment, manufacturing, and data teams to sustain quality.

This role emphasizes applying FMEA, AI-enabled monitoring, and data analysis to enable predictive quality, automate surveillance, and accelerate defect detection, with strong cross‑functional collaboration across technical and operations groups.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Material Science, Physics, Data Sciences or a related technical field (Master's preferred)
• 3+ years of experience in quality assurance, quality engineering, or a related role within semiconductor or wafer manufacturing
• Strong problem-solving and root-cause-analysis skills.
• Ability to analyze datasets and interpret statistical/model-performance results.
• Experience working with AI/ML or generative AI systems a plus.
• Familiarity with FMEA methodology and its application to IT and manufacturing systems
• Basic understanding of wafer product, including HAMR and knowledgeable of SPC, wafer process build, interconnection between process, equipment, manufacturing, backend a plus
• Strong cross‑functional collaboration skills with the ability to engage both technical and operations teams
• Excellent analytical and problem‑solving skills with a detail‑oriented mindset

Responsibilities

• Perform wafer paper failure analysis (FA) and provide disposition for issues flagged by customers.
• Facilitate wafer manufacturing readiness review (MRR) and process design readiness (PDR) review meetings.
• Drive 8D closure with corrective action and preventive action (CAPA) implementations to prevent reoccurrence
• Failure Mode & Effects Analysis (FMEA): Lead and facilitate FMEA activities across wafer fab to proactively identify, assess, and mitigate potential failure modes and their impact on quality and reliability.
• Partner with process, equipment, manufacturing, and data engineering teams to implement automated quality surveillance and anomaly detection solutions.
• Drive digitalization initiatives that improve CAPA effectiveness, root cause identification, and risk assessment processes.
• Evaluate and integrate generative AI and digital agent technologies to enhance engineering productivity, knowledge management, and quality decision-making.
• Drive adoption of AI-powered quality engineering tools to increase engineering productivity, accelerate defect detection cycle times, and transition the organization from reactive quality management to predictive quality — anticipating and preventing excursions before they impact yield or customer deliverables.
• Participate in developing and deploying AI-assisted quality monitoring solutions for Change Review Board (CRB), Material Review Board (MRB), Failure Analysis (FA), and FMEA activities.

Skills

QA Engineering

FMEA

CAPA

AI/ML

Data analysis

Cross-functional collaboration

Root cause analysis

Problem solving

Education

Bachelor's degree in Engineering/Materials/Physics/Data Sciences

Job description

Western Digital Corporation in the San Jose area seeks a Quality Assurance Engineer to lead wafer FA, facilitate MRR/PDR reviews, and drive CAPA closures, partnering with process, equipment, manufacturing, and data teams to sustain quality.

This role emphasizes applying FMEA, AI-enabled monitoring, and data analysis to enable predictive quality, automate surveillance, and accelerate defect detection, with strong cross‑functional collaboration across technical and operations groups.