Senior Manager, Servo Firmware Engineering - San Jose, United States
Originally posted 26 October 2026 by the employer.
About the role
Lead the US HDD servo firmware development team responsible for the strategic vision and execution of the servo subsystem firmware architecture. The role focuses on platform strategies for HDD products supporting multiple concurrent data streams and multi-actuator control.
What you'll do
- Define and implement HDD servo firmware encompassing real-time motion control, parameter management, microarchitecture, instruction set architecture, and associated toolchains. - Coordinate SoC microarchitecture decisions affecting servo compute, including core count, memory hierarchy, interconnect design, and dynamic control accelerators. - Manage servo compute resource budgeting, including instruction and data memory allocation, processor cycle limits, and regression thresholds. - Lead firmware platform co-design across core control-loop implementations, multi-cluster and multi-actuator orchestration, and deterministic real-time performance across SoC generations. - Direct hardware, firmware, and tooling design in collaboration with SoC architecture, recording systems, and manufacturing teams. - Deliver multi-stream and multi-actuator firmware capabilities meeting control performance and power targets.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in computer engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, or equivalent degree and professional experience. - 10+ years of professional experience in embedded architecture and development, with a focus on real-time control, storage technology, or related servo control applications. - 5+ years of experience in senior technical leadership roles. - Proficiency in digital signal processing and real-time systems development. - Demonstrated experience with FPGA and/or ASIC design for embedded applications. - Proficiency in C/C++ programming, including compiler toolchain awareness.
Nice to have
- Master's degree, PhD, or relevant professional certification in embedded systems, real-time architecture, or multi-core computing platform architecture. - Proficiency in servo control theory, including loop design, stability analysis, and performance optimization. - Familiarity with MATLAB, Simulink, and simulation tools such as Renode. - Experience with product development lifecycle and design-for-manufacturability principles.
This role has been open 0 days — well below the 57-day median for Embedded Firmware Engineering roles.
Embedded Firmware Engineering · Systems Software
|
Open roles in category
759
|
Median days open
57 d
|
Median salary
$169k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Western Digital | All employers we track in this specialty (759 roles · 85 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 16 | 759 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 41 | 6292 · 146 employers |
| Median days open | 56 d | 57 d (−1 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $169k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 127 open roles · median 57 d
- Micron Technology · 65 open roles · median 90 d
- AMD · 63 open roles · median 42 d
- NVIDIA · 59 open roles · median 55 d
- Lattice Semiconductor · 45 open roles · median 47 d
- NXP Semiconductors · 36 open roles · median 34 d
How we counted: 759 open Embedded Firmware Engineering (Systems Software) roles from 85 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 27 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 Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.