Servo Control Engineer

Western Digital•San Jose, CA

About The Position

At WD, 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, WD 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®, and WD_BLACK™. 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, WD is fueling a brighter, smarter future. Today’s exceptional challenges require your unique skills. Together, we can build the future of data storage. Essential Duties & Responsibilities: Responsible for optimizing the high performance and robust positioning controller, and real-time servo firmware development for enterprise-class hard disk drives. Architect a robust servo system, compensating for environmental variables such as vibration, shock, supply voltage and temperature. Research, design, develop and maintain tools and equipment related to characterization and qualifying robust servo design. Provide failure analysis support for integration teams, manufacturing, and reliability testing. Collaborate with other teams to engineer design improvements that enhance robustness, minimize failures and optimize performance in all usage conditions Evaluate feasibility of advanced technologies and their interaction with servo subsystems through simulation and prototyping. 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

Role begins Summer 2026
Current MS/PhD EE or ME Graduating March 26 - May 26
Must have experience with servo-controller design for mechanical dynamic system; familiarity with design tradeoffs for feedback and feedforward solutions.
Must have experience with Matlab and experience in coding C/C++

Responsibilities

Responsible for optimizing the high performance and robust positioning controller, and real-time servo firmware development for enterprise-class hard disk drives.
Architect a robust servo system, compensating for environmental variables such as vibration, shock, supply voltage and temperature.
Research, design, develop and maintain tools and equipment related to characterization and qualifying robust servo design.
Provide failure analysis support for integration teams, manufacturing, and reliability testing.
Collaborate with other teams to engineer design improvements that enhance robustness, minimize failures and optimize performance in all usage conditions
Evaluate feasibility of advanced technologies and their interaction with servo subsystems through simulation and prototyping.

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