Reliability Integration and Failure Analysis Engineer - San Jose, United States
Originally posted 8 July 2026 by the employer.
Identify failure mechanisms across HAMR and ePMR HDD architectures by analyzing manufacturing and reliability test data.
About the role
Western Digital is seeking a Drive Failure Analysis and Reliability Integration Engineer to join the Hyperscale HDD Development Team. In this role, you will help identify causes of HAMR and ePMR HDD failures by analyzing manufacturing, engineering validation, and reliability test data.
What you'll do
- Analyze failures from manufacturing, engineering validation, and reliability testing to support root-cause determination. - Partner with HDD Development Engineering, Manufacturing, Customer teams, and Reliability partners to define analysis plans and next steps. - Use bench electrical failure analysis measurements, characterization data, and manufacturing data to determine likely failure causes. - Document failure analysis data, summarize findings, and communicate conclusions to technical stakeholders. - Apply programming and data analysis skills to improve reporting, trend analysis, and engineering efficiency. - Support corrective action discussions that improve product reliability, quality, and recurrence prevention.
What you'll need
- Recently completed BS degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Data Science, Engineering, or a related technical field. - Right to work in the US without requiring Western Digital to commence or sponsor an immigration case in order to employ you now or at any point in the future. - Academic, internship, project, or research experience involving data analysis, electronics testing, reliability, hardware, manufacturing, or technical problem solving. - Familiarity with one or more programming or analysis tools such as MATLAB, TCL, Python, R, C, or C++. - Experience with Microsoft Office applications.
Nice to have
- Exposure to electronics test equipment, data extraction, data visualization, statistics, hardware debugging, or manufacturing analytics. - Interest in HDD, semiconductor, storage, reliability engineering, failure analysis, or product development. - Internship, research, capstone, lab, or project experience that required technical documentation and data-based recommendations.
This role has been open 104 days — well above the 55-day median for Failure Analysis Engineering roles.
Failure Analysis Engineering · Failure Analysis
|
Open roles in category
193
|
Median days open
55 d
|
Median salary
$116k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Western Digital | All employers we track in this specialty (193 roles · 39 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 7 | 193 |
| Open roles in the wider Process, Fab & Equipment family | 158 | 10037 · 107 employers |
| Median days open | 68 d | 55 d (+13 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $116k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Micron Technology · 35 open roles · median 76 d
- GlobalFoundries · 14 open roles · median 29 d
- Lam Research · 14 open roles · median 45 d
- Infineon Technologies · 13 open roles · median 50 d
- Intel Corporation · 10 open roles · median 48 d
- STMicroelectronics · 10 open roles · median 49 d
How we counted: 193 open Failure Analysis Engineering (Failure Analysis) roles from 39 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 21 Oct 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 Process, Fab & Equipment family row. Figures refresh nightly.