Principal Engineer, systems design 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™, and SanDisk® 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

We are seeking a world-class Principal System Engineer to join our team developing a wide variety of advanced next-generation high performance storage system enclosures for the OEM and data center marketplace. You will have demonstrated leadership ability executing complex programs and an understanding of the who, what and how of system development. You will have strong skills and experience in the computer server and storage industry including familiarization with embedded storage processors, storage protocols, and servers. This is a high-impact, high visibility opportunity for the right individual with superior technical skills, good project management abilities, and an enthusiasm for success.

This is a technical leadership position that requires and individual that excels at leadership and collaboration.  As a leader, the candidate must be able to coordinate and guide the activities of other team members.  The successful candidate will be a role model for other members of the team, demonstrating the transparency, commitment and accountability that is expected from all team members. Strong interpersonal communication skills are a must.

Essential Responsibilities

• Provide multi-disciplinary technical leadership for the development of storage enclosures and storage servers consisting of mechanical chassis, hard drives, fans, power supplies, firmware, and printed circuit board assemblies with high-speed communication interfaces
• Develop System Specifications starting from customer and architectural requirements, providing detailed mechanical, electrical, functional, and environmental specifications and requirements for all major subsystems, interfaces between subsystems, and external interfaces
• Develop product requirements for manufacturability and engage with the manufacturing team to ensure the product can be effectively manufactured
• Coordinate cross-functional design reviews and oversee the development of system and subsystem verification plans
• Lead system integration activities during the prototype phase and oversee root cause resolution of specification and design defects
• Collaborate effectively cross-functionally with FW, EE, ME, product management, program management, verification engineering and manufacturing engineering to ensure that the designed system meets all product and regulatory requirements and can be effectively verified, manufactured and tested
• Assist with training the sales team, work directly with early customers, and provide technical support to the NPI team during the production ramp
• Provide mentorship to other SE engineers as needed

Qualifications

• BS or MS degree in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering (or related field)
• 8+ years of experience with storage and server product systems design & development
• Very familiar with Computer architecture and components including motherboards, memory, and x86 CPUs
• Experience with systems integration activities
• Experience with Hard drive and flash-based devices
• Familiar with High-speed communication protocols such as PCIe, DDR, Ethernet and SAS/SATA, and NVMe
• Server management experience including UEFI, BIOS, BMC, IPMI, Redfish, and OS/driver installation
• Current knowledge of the latest networking standards and best practices  
• Expertise in board level and system level troubleshooting
• Expert understanding of the use of test equipment such as analyzers, high-speed real-time scopes, pattern generators and BERT equipment
• Demonstrated ability in creative problem solving and innovation
• Strong team player, effective