Drive Teardown Failure Analysis Engineer

Western Digital•San Jose, CA

5d•Onsite

About The Position

WD is seeking a Drive Teardown Failure Analysis Engineer to join the Hyperscale HDD Development Team. This hands-on role helps identify causes of HAMR and ePMR HDD failures through physical teardown, lab-based inspection, documentation, and collaboration with reliability and product development teams. You will learn how physical evidence, electrical failure analysis, and advanced characterization methods combine to improve product quality and reliability. This role is part of WD's early career development program. WD's early career development program is ideal for individuals at the early stages of their professional career. Participants receive foundational training through structured onboarding, mentorship, and a curated development curriculum. The responsibilities of this role are typically aligned with candidates who have approximately 0–2+ years of relevant professional experience, though candidates of all experience levels are encouraged to apply.

Requirements

Recently completed a BS degree in Material Science, Mechanical Engineering, Chemistry, Physics, Engineering, Biology, or a related science or engineering field.
Right to work in the US without requiring WD to commence or sponsor an immigration case to employ you now or at any point in the future.
Academic, internship, project-based, or research lab experience in a science or engineering environment.
Strong organization, problem-solving, communication, teamwork, and documentation skills.
Comfort working in a hands-on technical environment and learning clean room and lab procedures.
Attention to detail and willingness to learn HDD teardown and failure analysis methods.

Nice To Haves

Exposure to optical microscopy, SEM, AFM, Raman, ToF-SIMS, materials characterization, sample preparation, clean room work, manufacturing processes, or reliability testing.
Interest in HDD, semiconductor, storage, failure analysis, materials science, product reliability, or physical root-cause investigation.
Experience documenting lab findings and communicating technical conclusions to a broader team.

Responsibilities

Perform hands-on HDD teardown during the product development phase in a Class 100 clean room environment.
Review electrical failure analysis results and help determine the next course of investigation.
Collect, interpret, and document possible failure causes and recommended next steps for additional FA characterization or analysis.
Document findings in the FA database system and prepare clear failure analysis reports and conclusions for program teams.
Partner with functional teams to prevent recurrence of similar issues and improve product reliability.
Build proficiency in lab procedures, sample handling, technical documentation, and failure analysis workflows.

Benefits

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
the WD Savings 401(k) Plan