Join our dynamic and collaborative team to help with WD customer failure analysis in support of requests from our customers. As Principal FA Lead, you will be managing Failure Analysis activities spanning across multiple hard disk drives labs. You will collaborate with worldwide FA teams and review failure analysis reports from the labs and collaborate with labs and subject matter experts to decide on best course of action for identifying underlying causes of failures and drive problems. You will be in charge of the overall FA summaries with key findings and supporting images from the labs. These summaries are used to communicate failure modes and causes to the customers, field application engineers, quality managers, manufacturing, or development teams. You will have multiple opportunities to help improve FA processes and tools based on learnings from FA work. Over time, you will gain expertise allowing you to be one of few HDD FA experts in the world! ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: - Manage FA activities, priorities and identify causes of failures and related drive problems on customer and field drives within the corresponding priority time frame - Summarize FA results based on key lab findings and causes of failure - Pro-actively engage with subject matter experts in PCBA, Firmware, Reliability, Data Analytics, FA Tools, Customer Technical Support and Customer Quality Managers, Factory FA and Quality teams on customer issues - Follow department/work group processes - Develop, improve, and document failure analysis procedures, processes, and requirements - Participate in selected Program/Product/Customer issue resolution meetings and act as an integral part of the issue resolution team - Effectively present information, ideas, and your perspective to peers, team members and managers - Create and meet schedules for high priority FA and process improvements - Brainstorm, be open to inputs and recommend team improvements and team process improvements - Interact with Development teams to understand new technology, develop associated failure analysis tools, processes, and documentation - Define and work on tool improvements related to FA such as drive log visualizations and FIO tests - Learn about product failures from development teams You will effectively communicate results and status with management and team members and participate in resolving product and customer issues by providing meaningful insights. Qualifications - Hard disk drive failure analysis experience - Proven problem-solving skills - Proven leadership skills - Effective at multi-tasking, organization and time management - Self-motivated - Demonstrates patience, confidence, and composure - Detailed knowledge of hard drives and knowledge of factory processes and storage applications - Knowledge and experience with Python, C++, and/or SQL is a plus - Knowledge and experience with FIO performance testing is a plus - Knowledge and experience with Data Analytics and Reliability is a plus - Strong written and verbal communication skills - Excellent interpersonal and teamworking skills Candidates must demonstrate relevant experience, interest and aptitude in both analytical and practical aspects of the above topics Education: BS/MS in EE, ME, IE, or equivalent Experience: 2+ years of Failure Analysis experience with Western Digital enterprise or client hard drives highly desired 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.