Western Digital Technologies

Cloud Storage Test Engineer

Western Digital Technologies • $100K — $133K *
Rochester, MN 55901In-Person
Information Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
4 days ago
Be an Early Applicant
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
  • 2-6 years of hands-on experience in storage systems or infrastructure.
  • Familiarity with scale-out storage architectures and distributed object or block storage.
  • Exposure to S3-compatible object storage and operational concepts.
  • Strong Linux command-line proficiency and physical lab environment experience.
  • Solid scripting ability in Python, Bash, or similar for automation.

Responsibilities

  • Deploy and operate scale-out storage environments emulating real customer datacenter architectures.
  • Measure and analyze storage system performance and produce clear performance reports.
  • Investigate performance anomalies by analyzing metrics and telemetry.
  • Translate technical customer workload studies into test scenarios.
  • Monitor drive health telemetry and correlate it with cluster performance.
  • Contribute to fleet management for HDD inventory tracking and lifecycle status.
  • Assist with datacenter infrastructure management tasks during active cluster tests.
  • Document test configurations and performance results for peer reproducibility.

Benefits

  • Paid vacation and sick leave.
  • Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
  • Life, accident, and disability insurance.
  • Tuition reimbursement.
  • Employee stock purchase plan and 401(k) with savings options.
Full Job Description
Job Description

The Storage Test Engineer will serve as a hands-on technical contributor within Western Digital's System Integration & Test (SIT) lab, focused on deploying, operating, and validating clustered storage environments that accurately reflect real-world cloud and datacenter infrastructure. Working closely with the Clustered Storage Test team and HDD System Test groups, this engineer will configure scale-out storage clusters, design and execute various workloads and SLA validation tests, measure and analyze system and drive performance, and monitor drive health telemetry. This role is ideal for an engineer with 2-6 years of experience in storage systems or infrastructure who is ready to go deep on distributed storage behavior, performance characterization, and large-scale fleet operations.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
  • Deploy and operate scale-out storage environments - including multi-node object storage clusters, erasure-coded pools, and rack-level storage deployments - configured to emulate real customer datacenter architectures at lab scale.
  • Measure and analyze storage system and drive performance - characterizing throughput, IOPS, and latency distributions across workload profiles including AI/ML data access patterns, backup and restore traffic, cloud object storage, and web-serving workloads - and producing clear performance reports with root-cause observations.
  • Identify and investigate performance anomalies by correlating cluster-level metrics with drive-level telemetry, distinguishing between platform bottlenecks, configuration issues, and drive-level contributors to throughput or latency degradation.
  • Analyze technical customer workload studies and translate key variables into realistic test scenarios and validation methodologies.
  • Instrument and monitor drive health telemetry - collecting and trending SMART attributes, Error Logs, I/O error rates, and temperature data - to identify early failure indicators and correlate drive health signals with observed cluster performance during long-run experiments.
  • Contribute to fleet management processes for the lab's HDD inventory, supporting tracking of drive state, physical location, test assignment, and lifecycle status across large populations of test drives.
  • Assist with datacenter infrastructure management tasks including rack-level storage deployments, drive swap procedures, firmware staging, and hardware validation during active cluster tests.
  • Document test configurations, performance results, and failure analyses in detailed technical write-ups that allow peer engineers to reproduce experiments, compare results across configurations, and build on prior findings.
  • Collaborate with senior engineers to identify gaps between existing test methodologies and modern cloud storage deployment patterns, then help design and implement updated test scenarios, workload mixes, or cluster configurations that close those gaps.
  • Evaluate storage benchmarking tools and workload generators, assessing their suitability for emulating specific customer traffic profiles and recommending configurations that produce the most representative and actionable results.

Salary Range: 100,200.00-133,600.00

Qualifications

REQUIRED
  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field.
  • 2-6 years of hands-on experience in storage systems, distributed infrastructure, or storage test and validation engineering.
  • Familiarity with scale-out storage architectures and an understanding of how distributed object or block storage clusters are structured, scaled, and managed in production environments.
  • Exposure to S3-compatible object storage (MinIO, AWS S3, or equivalent), including operational concepts such as bucket management, erasure coding, and performance benchmarking.
  • Strong Linux command-line proficiency; comfort working in a physical lab environment with servers, HBAs, JBODs, and storage controllers.
  • Solid scripting ability (Python, Bash, or similar) sufficient for automating test execution, parsing results, and building lightweight data-processing utilities.

PREFERRED
  • Familiarity with drive health monitoring and telemetry - including SMART attribute collection, error log analysis, and correlating drive-level signals with system-level performance observations.
  • Exposure to rack-level storage deployment practices: server racking, HBA and storage controller configuration, JBOD/JBOF cabling and validation.
  • Familiarity of erasure coding and how EC parity levels affect storage efficiency, durability, and rebuild performance under drive failure conditions.
  • Experience with fleet management concepts or tooling for tracking and auditing large inventories of physical storage devices across a lab or datacenter environment.
  • Familiarity with SLA testing methodologies - defining availability and durability targets, instrumenting measurement, and validating cluster behavior against those targets under both normal and degraded conditions.
  • Experience with storage benchmarking tools such as Warp, fio, vdbench, or similar workload generators.
  • Experience with automation tools like Docker, Ansible, Grafana, etc.
  • Knowledge of distributed storage platforms such as Ceph, HDFS, or similar open-source cluster software.
  • Familiarity with datacenter infrastructure management practices including asset lifecycle tracking, capacity planning, and hardware refresh operations.
  • Experience building automated test reports or data pipelines that collect, process, and present performance and health metrics from distributed storage systems - including scheduled report generation, results dashboards, or trend-tracking tooling that surfaces patterns across long-run test campaigns.

Salary Range

117,200.00-156,300.00

Compensation & Benefits Details
  • An employee's pay position within the salary range may be based on several factors including but not limited to (1) relevant education; qualifications; certifications; and experience; (2) skills, ability, knowledge of the job; (3) performance, contribution and results; (4) geographic location; (5) shift; (6) internal and external equity; and (7) business and organizational needs.
  • The salary range is what we believe to be the range of possible compensation for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and this range is only applicable for jobs to be performed in California, Colorado, New York or remote jobs that can be performed in California, Colorado and New York. This range may be modified in the future.
  • If your position is non-exempt, you are eligible for overtime pay pursuant to company policy and applicable laws. You may also be eligible for shift differential pay, depending on the shift to which you are assigned.
  • You will be eligible to be considered for bonuses under either WD's Short Term Incentive Plan ("STI Plan") or the Sales Incentive Plan ("SIP") which provides incentive awards based on Company and individual performance, depending on your role and your performance. You may be eligible to participate in our annual Long-Term Incentive (LTI) program, which consists of restricted stock units (RSUs) or cash equivalents, pursuant to the terms of the LTI plan. Please note that not all roles are eligible to participate in the LTI program, and not all roles are eligible for equity under the LTI plan. RSU awards are also available to eligible new hires, subject to WD's Standard Terms and Conditions for Restricted Stock Unit Awards.
  • We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid vacation time; paid sick leave; medical/dental/vision insurance; life, accident and disability insurance; tax-advantaged flexible spending and health savings accounts; employee assistance program; other voluntary benefit programs such as supplemental life and AD&D, legal plan, pet insurance, critical illness, accident and hospital indemnity; tuition reimbursement; transit; the Applause Program; employee stock purchase plan; and the WD Savings 401(k) Plan.
  • Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole discretion unless and until paid and may be modified at the Company's sole discretion, consistent with the law.

About Western Digital Technologies

Western Technology Investment is a venture capital firm that specializes in offering acquisition financing to revenue-generating firms. The firm provides debt and lease financing to venture capital backed technology companies.

Western Digital Technologies Careers

Join the innovative world of Western Digital Technologies, a leader in data storage solutions, where we are committed to empowering our global team of professionals. This is an unparalleled opportunity to advance your career with a company at the forefront of technological innovation and digital storage.

Work You’ll Do

At Western Digital Technologies, you will be part of a dynamic team that drives data innovation across various industries. Our commitment to excellence and leadership in the technology sector provides a unique platform for professionals to influence the future of digital storage and management solutions.

Explore Job Opportunities and Growth

Western Digital Technologies offers a variety of job opportunities that cater to a range of skills and experiences. Whether you’re looking for an entry-level position or a more senior role, our company is eager to support your professional growth through challenging projects and continuous learning opportunities.

Internship Programs

Kickstart your career with Western Digital Technologies through our internship programs. These positions are designed to give you hands-on experience and insights into our day-to-day operations, preparing you for a full-time role in our company. Interns at Western Digital Technologies gain invaluable industry knowledge, networking opportunities, and professional skills under the guidance of experienced mentors.

Benefits and Culture

We pride ourselves on a culture that fosters diversity, innovation, and leadership. Western Digital Technologies is dedicated to providing employees with a supportive work environment where everyone is encouraged to be their best. Our benefits package is comprehensive, including health, dental, and vision insurance, employee wellness programs, and significant career development opportunities.

Join Our Team

We are continuously hiring creative, curious, and motivated individuals who are ready to drive innovation in the technology space. Explore open positions that match your skills and interests on our careers page. At Western Digital Technologies, we value diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

Professional Development and Training

Advance your career with Western Digital Technologies through our professional development programs. We offer a range of training and development options, including leadership training, skills enhancement workshops, and diversity training sessions to help you grow as a leader and innovator in our industry.

Stay Connected

Keep up to date with the latest career tips, industry insights, and company news by subscribing to our careers blog. Personalize your experience by signing up for job alert emails tailored to your career preferences and be the first to know about new openings and exciting opportunities at Western Digital Technologies.

Apply Now

Ready to take the next step in your career? Submit your resume, prepare for your interview, and join a team that’s redefining the future of technology. At Western Digital Technologies, your future is waiting.

SEARCH WESTERN DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES JOBS

Join us at Western Digital Technologies, where your career growth is integrated with innovation and leadership, empowering you to reach new heights in the technology industry.
Learn more about Western Digital Technologies
Size
65,600 employees
Market Cap
$9.9 billion
Industry
Enterprise Technology
Net Income
$167 million
Founded
1970
5 Year Trend
-0.3%
Revenue
$16.3 billion
NASDAQ
WDC
* Ladders Estimates
Ad banner background

Get Ready For Your
Next Interview

More Jobs at Western Digital Technologies

More Information Technology Jobs

Find similar Cloud Storage Test Engineer jobs:

NationwideRochester, MN