Principal SSD Debug Engineer - 2282
$155,420 - $259,030 USD yearly
Originally posted 27 October 2026 by the employer.
About the role
The Principal SSD Debug Engineer leads complex failure investigations involving enterprise and data center SSDs deployed in hyperscale server environments. The role spans the complete storage subsystem, debugging from host applications and operating system drivers through PCIe interfaces down to SSD controller firmware and NAND media.
What you'll do
- Troubleshoot failures across the server storage stack, including applications, file systems, block layers, operating system storage drivers, hypervisors, PCIe subsystems, and SSDs.
- Investigate storage failures across multiple controller configurations, covering resource contention, concurrency, thermal behavior, PLP, and heterogeneous driver interactions through virtualization.
- Analyze Linux and Windows host logs, kernel crash dumps, PCIe protocol traces, BMC event logs, and system telemetry to isolate failure mechanisms.
- Develop debug firmware in C across the SSD firmware stack to isolate root causes and validate fixes.
- Troubleshoot SSD performance issues to reduce tail latencies and improve IOPS and throughput.
- Perform lab testing to replicate reported issues and produce 8D failure analysis reports and technical white papers.
What you'll need
- BS degree in computer engineering or equivalent field with at least 10 years of experience, or an MS degree with at least 8 years of experience.
- Hands-on C programming and debugging experience in embedded firmware or low-level systems software.
- In-depth understanding of NVMe and PCIe specifications with experience debugging protocol-level failures.
- Solid understanding of SSD architecture, including controller SoCs, NAND flash, FTL, garbage collection, wear leveling, and error handling.
- Proficiency in Linux storage debugging tools including dmesg, journalctl, nvme-cli, fio, lspci, perf, and kernel crash analysis tools.
- Working knowledge of BMC functionality, IPMI/Redfish interfaces, BIOS/UEFI, platform initialization, and JTAG firmware debugging interfaces.
Skills: SSD, NVMe, PCIe, FTL, C programming, storage drivers
This role has been open 9 days — well below the 65-day median for Infrastructure/Platform Software roles.
Infrastructure/Platform Software · Storage Systems
|
Open roles in category
37
|
Median days open
65 d
|
Category median salary (all employers)
$220k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | KIOXIA America | All employers we track in this specialty (37 roles · 16 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 1 | 37 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 5 | 6477 · 156 employers |
| Median days open | 9 d | 65 d (−56 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $220k |
Skills observed across this category: SSD, NVMe, PCIe, FTL, C programming, storage drivers
Who's hiring in this category
- NVIDIA · 20 open roles · median 70 d
- AMD · 2 open roles · median 3 d
- MangoBoost · 2 open roles · median 2 d
- Broadcom · 1 open role · median 169 d
- Intel Corporation · 1 open role · median 14 d
- KIOXIA America (this employer) · 1 open role · median 9 d
How we counted: 37 open Infrastructure/Platform Software (Storage Systems) roles from 16 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 6 Nov 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.