Principal Engineer, Storage Product Standards - San Jose, California, United States

Originally posted 9 September 2026 by the employer.

About the role

This role drives industry standards within NVMe (including NVMe-oF) and the Open Compute Project (OCP) Storage Project, leveraging SNIA frameworks to manage lifecycle, data attributes, and data orchestration.

What you'll do

• Propose, draft, and review technical specifications and proposals within NVMe and OCP working groups.
• Act as a thought leader within the storage community, serving in leadership positions within NVMe, OCP, or SNIA boards.
• Influence core NVMe and OCP committees to align industry standards with Samsung's product capabilities and technological strengths.
• Translate hyperscaler requirements, such as Microsoft’s Azure Cloud SSD specifications and Meta’s platform requirements, into actionable features for Samsung’s enterprise SSD controller and firmware architectures.
• Create customer-facing technical whitepapers, solution briefs, and education materials for Eco/Standard activities.

What you'll need

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field with 20+ years experience or a Master’s Degree with 18+ years experience or a Ph.D. with 15+ years experience.
• Minimum of 10+ years of direct experience in the storage industry, including foundational hands-on experience with legacy HDD technology and systems alongside modern NAND flash and SSD development.
• Verified track record of strategic influence, technical contributions, or committee leadership within core storage industry bodies, consortiums, or major cross-industry vendor alliances.
• Proven experience designing or standardizing storage solutions that satisfy OCP Datacenter NVMe SSD Specifications mandated by major cloud vendors (e.g., Meta, Microsoft).
• Deep technical knowledge of PCIe/NVMe protocols, specialized enterprise features like FDP (Flexible Data Placement) and telemetry, anchored by a foundational understanding of legacy enterprise storage protocols (SAS/SATA/SCSI).
• Practical understanding of SNIA frameworks for storage management and SNIA's enduring models for data security and data lifecycle tracking.
• Ability to master and leverage Samsung's proprietary SSD technologies, flash translation layers (FTL), and custom controller roadmaps to guide standardization proposals.
• Exceptional written and verbal English communication skills, with a proven ability to lead technical debates, author formal specifications, and build consensus among external competitors, partners, and cloud clients.

Skills: storage product standards, NVMe, OCP Storage Project, industry standards, product roadmap