Director, Hardware Development 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 and capture the first-ever picture of a black hole.

We offer an expansive portfolio of technologies, HDDs, and platforms for business, creative professionals, and consumers alike under our Western Digital®, WD®, WD_BLACK™ Professional brands.

We are a key partner to some of the largest and highest-growth organizations in the world. From enabling systems to make cities safer and more connected, to powering the data centers behind many of the world’s biggest companies and hyperscale cloud providers, to meeting the massive and ever-growing data storage needs of the AI era, Western Digital is fueling a brighter, smarter future.

Today’s exceptional challenges require your unique skills. Together, we can build the future of data storage.

Job Description

Job Description

The Director, Hardware Development Engineering serves as a Module Manager and as a leader overseeing 2 -4 1st line managers across Manufacturing Process and Equipment disciplines.

The Module Manager must set direction, priority and coordinate between manufacturing, maintenance, logistics/supply chain, process and equipment engineering groups to resolve issues that affect wafer cycletime and quality. 

Additionally, the Module Manager will provide leadership, coaching, and mentorship to create a cohesive self-sustaining team. Maintain oversight of issues related to process and equipment and drive resolution of problems that arise. Drive systematic and engineering solutions to improve the manufacturing process.  Adapt to changes on the fly and pursue alternate paths, when necessary to achieve objectives:

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Manage a cross functional module team of process and equipment engineers to sustain and improve manufacturing output
• Identify and drive resolution of problems that could impact output, quality and/or cost
• Monitor tool performance as needed and react to out-of-control situations
• Approach and drive solutions with cross functional groups
• Track employee performance and deliverables to ensure expectations are being met
• Provide timely coaching to develop and enhance the performance of your direct reports
• Conduct periodic performance reviews and ensure assessments are fair, consistent
• Address performance problems in a timely fashion and take appropriate action(s)
• Ensure the consistent application of appropriate disciplinary actions, when warranted
• Promote and implement “Lean” manufacturing methodologies, sustainability and scalability

Qualifications

REQUIRED:

• BS/MS/PhD in either of the following: Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Materials Engineering, Magnetics, Chemical Engineering, Data Analysis, Statistics, Chemistry, Physics and/or Business Administration/Management or equivalent experience
• Minimum 10+ years in wafer manufacturing and management
• Strong knowledge and familiarity of semiconductor wafer manufacturing (thin film etch, deposition, magnetics, photolithography, metrology, plating, chemical mechanical planarization), operations and logistics. 
• Able to extract, summarize, interpret and present data and apply to decision making
• Project management experience
• Proficiency in Excel, Powerpoint, data analytics and statistics
• History of problem solving; able to drive problems to resolution
• Understand manufacturing and factory systems and how they interact with one another
• Excellent communication skills, verbal and written

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, gender expression, and gender-related appearance and behavior, whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth), age, national origin, sexual orientation, medical condition, marital status (including domestic partnership status), physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, protected medical and family care leave, Civil Air Patrol status, military and veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics. We also prohibit harassment of any individual on any of