Principal Engineer, Reliability Engineering

Sandisk•Milpitas, CA

3d•Onsite

About The Position

We are seeking a highly experienced Principal Engineer to lead strategy, planning, build and maintenance of SSD environmental test chambers supporting our Enterprise Product Quality organization. This role is responsible for test chamber capacity planning, capital purchases, maintenance strategy, utilization optimization, and deep technical engagement on test chamber failure analysis. The ideal candidate brings hands-on experience with environmental chambers, strong ability to coordinate with global team across multiple time zones including India, Israel & Malaysia and the ability to work effectively with external vendors to resolve complex reliability and infrastructure issues impacting product quality and test throughput.

Requirements

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
6+ years of engineering experience, with significant focus on test infrastructure, environmental testing, Reliability, or validation environments.
Hands-on experience working with environmental test chambers (thermal, humidity, stress testing, etc.).
Strong understanding of chamber maintenance, calibration, failure modes, and operational best practices.
Proven experience analyzing and troubleshooting tester or infrastructure failures in a lab or production-like environment.
Experience working directly with external vendors to resolve technical issues and drive improvements.
Excellent communication skills with the ability to work across multiple teams and influence technical decisions, test infrastructure demand planning

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting SSD or storage product qualification, validation, or reliability testing.
Familiarity with enterprise-class reliability methodologies (HTOL, temperature cycling, burn-in, stress testing, Reliability Demonstration Testing).
Background in scaling test infrastructure for high-volume or multiproduct environments.

Responsibilities

Define and drive maintenance strategies (preventive, corrective, lifecycle management) for environmental chambers and associated test infrastructure.
Establish standard operating procedures, health metrics, and readiness criteria for chambers used in SSD qualification and reliability testing.
Build continuous improvement strategies based on lessons learned.
Lead root cause analysis and corrective actions for chamber-related downtime or performance issues.
Diagnose issues spanning thermal, power, mechanical, electrical, and control systems.
Work with external vendors and internal teams to implement corrective actions to drive cross-functional debug efforts to identify root causes and implement robust fixes.
Serve as the primary technical interface with environmental chamber vendors and test equipment suppliers.
Lead vendor technical reviews, failure escalations, and corrective action plans.
Evaluate vendor solutions, technologies, and roadmaps to influence future purchases and capabilities.
Own end-to-end planning for SSD environmental test chambers including capital planning and justification for new chamber purchases, capacity and utilization planning aligned with product roadmaps, long term infrastructure and scaling strategy.
Partner with Product Quality, Reliability, Validation, and Operations teams to forecast test demand and align infrastructure investments.
Work closely with global teams to ensure labs and equipment are aligned to product plans, update schedules, and best practices.
Act as the main point of contact for making sure labs and equipment are staying aligned to company policies and procedures.
Identify inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement and automation.

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 Sandisk's Savings 401(k) Plan