Senior Technologist, Firmware Engineering

Company 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.

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.

Job Description

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES 

• Conduct end-to-end field programmable gate array (FPGA) prototyping platform demonstrations of HDD dynamic control accelerators, which may include but are not limited to using machine learning accelerators 
• Define overall system architecture, including external memories and interfaces, along with microarchitecture of key hardware components comprising HDD dynamic control platforms, which may include but are not limited to machine learning acceleration hardware 
• Perform area and power optimization analysis 
• Propose and specify useful hardware optimizations along with system-on-chip (SoC) architecture for accelerators 
• Implement prototype hardware designs of proposed SoC as a FPGA demonstration for both internal and external stakeholders 
• Define the hardware, firmware & associated tool designs together with stakeholders and development teams 
• Work closely with all stakeholders in the implementation of HDD real-time motion and parameter control microarchitecture, instruction set architecture, firmware architecture & tool chain associated with business situation  
• Work closely with all stakeholders in the implementation of HDD firmware related to dynamic control associated with business situation  
• Participate in team meeting and influence hardware, firmware & associated tooling development with enough communication for geographically distributed international development team to support business and technical objectives  
• Negotiate with stakeholders about priorities 
• Ensure strong execution of identified hardware, firmware & associated tools strategy  

Qualifications

REQUIRED

• Bachelors Degree +8 years of experience, or Masters Degree +6 yrs of experience in embedded architecture and development required
• Experience as project technical leader 
• Demonstrates strong technical leadership and a commitment to the result 
• Experience with linear algebra applications in error correction codes (ECC), digital filtering, convolution and other digital signal processing (DSP) applications 
• Experience in modeling, analysis and simulation of linear algebra/DSP solutions using Matlab/Python 
• Experience in architecture and digital design of DSP systems/accelerators targeted for FPGAs and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) 
• Experience with FPGA and ASIC synthesis, simulation and implementation tools 
• Experience with power estimation and analysis for ASIC and FPGA designs 
• Experience in architecture and design of embedded systems using Xilinx Zynq / Microblaze, system partitioning, co-simulation and testing 
• Experience programming in System Verilog, VHDL, C, C++ and assembly language 

SKILLS

• Excellent communication, interpersonal and collaborative skills (including presentation skills) across worldwide engineering team, in English 
• Experience scripting in Matlab, Python, Perl and Bash. Tcl/Tk is a plus 

Additional Information

Western Digital is committed to providing equal opportunities to all applicants and employees and will not discriminate 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, ge