Senior Principal Supply Chain Engineer - HDD - San Jose, United States
Originally posted 10 September 2026 by the employer.
About the role
This role partners with the industry ecosystem, strategic suppliers, and internal cross-functional teams to enable new technologies, reduce total cost of ownership, and strengthen supplier manufacturing capability, capacity, quality, and resilience.
What you'll do
- Partner with suppliers to evaluate, pilot, and scale new technologies, processes, and materials to improve cost, performance, quality, and time-to-market. - Serve as a technical interface between suppliers and internal engineering, manufacturing, quality, and procurement teams. - Lead initiatives to reduce total cost of ownership through design-for-manufacturability, process optimization, automation, yield improvement, and lifecycle cost analysis. - Support should-cost modeling and fact-based negotiations through technical and process understanding. - Drive initiatives to improve supplier operational maturity, including process capability, equipment readiness, workforce skills, and digitalization. - Lead root cause analysis and corrective action for systemic supplier issues while promoting continuous improvement methodologies including Lean, Six Sigma, and SPC.
What you'll need
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Mechanical, Material Science, Electronics, Physics, Chemical, Supply Chain, Operations, or a related technical field. - Extensive experience in supply chain engineering, manufacturing engineering, supplier development, or related roles. - Direct experience working with suppliers on technical, operational, or cost-reduction initiatives. - Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a data-driven approach. - Ability to travel domestically and internationally as needed.
Nice to have
- Master’s degree in Engineering, Mechanical, Material Science, Electronics, Physics, Chemical, Supply Chain, Operations, or a related technical field, and an MBA. - Experience introducing new manufacturing technologies or processes into production. - Background in cost modeling, should-cost analysis, or value engineering.
Skills: Supplier Technology Enablement, supply chain engineering, manufacturing engineering, process optimization, yield improvement, cost reduction, HDD
This role has been open 39 days — well below the 53-day median for Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering roles.
Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering · Manufacturing Equipment
|
Open roles in category
2523
|
Median days open
53 d
|
Median salary
$97k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Western Digital | All employers we track in this specialty (2523 roles · 80 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 48 | 2523 |
| Open roles in the wider Process, Fab & Equipment family | 165 | 9979 · 109 employers |
| Median days open | 41 d | 53 d (−12 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $97k |
Skills observed across this category: Supplier Technology Enablement, supply chain engineering, manufacturing engineering, process optimization, yield improvement, cost reduction
Who's hiring in this category
- Micron Technology · 402 open roles · median 78 d
- Applied Materials · 251 open roles · median 40 d
- Entegris · 225 open roles · median 39 d
- Lam Research · 108 open roles · median 61 d
- Infineon Technologies · 90 open roles · median 59 d
- STMicroelectronics · 69 open roles · median 55 d
How we counted: 2523 open Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering (Manufacturing Equipment) roles from 80 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 19 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.