Staff HAMR HDD Integration Engineer

Western Digital; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Western Digital in San Jose is seeking a Staff Engineer to drive development, validation, and optimization of next-generation HAMR HDDs from prototype through manufacturing. You will work with the Read/Write Integration team to turn cutting-edge HAMR research into scalable products used worldwide.

The role emphasizes developing features, data-driven analysis, and collaboration with Firmware, Servo, Manufacturing, and Media teams.

Qualifications

• PhD in a relevant field and strong experimental or computational focus.
• 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 HDD features that improve performance, reliability, and capacity.
• Test hardware across bench, drive-level, and manufacturing environments using Python, Kiko, and manufacturing test systems.
• Analyze manufacturing and quality data using Python, R, and MATLAB to identify trends, optimize performance, and prevent customer issues.
• Perform hardware failure analysis, investigate root causes, and partner with firmware engineers to resolve complex issues.
• Read and interpret C/C++ manufacturing test code to understand system behavior and troubleshoot problems.
• Collaborate with engineers across Firmware, Servo, Manufacturing, and Media teams.
• Contribute to patents and innovative technologies that shape future HDD products.

Skills

Python

R

MATLAB

C/C++

Collaboration

Education

PhD in Physics

PhD in Materials Science

PhD in Electrical Engineering

PhD in Computer Science

Tools

Kiko

Job description

Western Digital in San Jose is seeking a Staff Engineer to drive development, validation, and optimization of next-generation HAMR HDDs from prototype through manufacturing. You will work with the Read/Write Integration team to turn cutting-edge HAMR research into scalable products used worldwide.

The role emphasizes developing features, data-driven analysis, and collaboration with Firmware, Servo, Manufacturing, and Media teams.