Principal, R&D Engineering

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.

We are a key partner to some of the largest and highest growth organizations in the world. From energizing the most competitive gaming platforms, to enabling systems to make cities safer and cars smarter and more connected, to powering the data centers behind many of the world’s biggest companies and public cloud, Western Digital is fueling a brighter, smarter future.

Binge-watch any shows, use social media or shop online lately? You’ll find Western Digital supporting the storage infrastructure behind many of these platforms. And, that flash memory card that captures and preserves your most precious moments? That’s us, too.

We offer an expansive portfolio of technologies, storage devices and platforms for business and consumers alike. Our data-centric solutions are comprised of the Western Digital®, G-Technology™, SanDisk® and WD® brands.

Today’s exceptional challenges require your unique skills. It’s You & Western Digital. Together, we’re the next BIG thing in data.

The Emerging System Architectures group vision is to build the next-generation systems adopted at scale. We are at the forefront of Western Digital's impact in the storage industry, creating the systems and architectures that will drive the future needs of storage. For example, in 2020, Western Digital launched the Zoned Storage initiative and brought the first ZNS SSD to market. We are now actively scaling our team to meet the overwhelming demands to adopt this and other imminent technologies.

As a principal R&D researcher, you will lead projects critical to adopting these technologies. In addition, you will engage the industry internally and externally, enable open-source software that drives the world's data centers, and collaborate closely with the largest cloud providers and storage systems providers in the industry. Hence, we need our researchers to be versatile, display leadership qualities, and be enthusiastic to take on new programs across the entire system stack as we continue to push the industry forward.

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

• Develop and technical lead adoption of technologies from the early prototype stage to large-scale production in collaboration with key customers.
• Collaborate across the company to enable said technologies from aiding engineering to build the appropriate hardware for our customers to enable that hardware through software integrations.
• Engage with the industry to enable adoption. For example, by standardization and upstreaming work into major open-source software communities.
• Debug and solve software issues across the entire system stack.

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• Five years of software development experience, including development in C/C++ or other low-level languages.
• Solid Linux ecosystem experience and ability to quantify performance (evaluation, analysis, or optimization).
• Experience in technical leadership, leading project teams, or setting technical direction.

Preferred qualifications:

• Graduate-level degree (MSc or Ph.D.) in Computer science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related.
• Highly entrepreneurial with a strong sense of ownership and autonomy
• Self-motivated and focused on getting things done.
• Comfortable working on large-scale software projects, such as the Linux kernel, file-systems, database systems, distributed systems, and orchestration of these.
• Experience with upstreaming work into large-scale open-source projects.

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.