Drive Teardown Failure Analysis Engineer

About the role

WD is seeking a Drive Teardown Failure Analysis Engineer to join the Hyperscale HDD Development Team. This hands-on role helps identify causes of HAMR and ePMR HDD failures through physical teardown, lab-based inspection, documentation, and collaboration with reliability and product development teams.

Responsibilities

• Perform hands-on HDD teardown during the product development phase in a Class 100 clean room environment.
• Review electrical failure analysis results and help determine the next course of investigation.
• Collect, interpret, and document possible failure causes and recommended next steps for additional FA characterization or analysis.
• Document findings in the FA database system and prepare clear failure analysis reports and conclusions for program teams.
• Partner with functional teams to prevent recurrence of similar issues and improve product reliability.
• Build proficiency in lab procedures, sample handling, technical documentation, and failure analysis workflows.

Qualifications

• Recently completed a BS degree in Material Science, Mechanical Engineering, Chemistry, Physics, Engineering, Biology, or a related science or engineering field.
• Right to work in the US without requiring WD to commence or sponsor an immigration case to employ you now or at any point in the future.
• Academic, internship, project-based, or research lab experience in a science or engineering environment.
• Strong organization, problem-solving, communication, teamwork, and documentation skills.
• Comfort working in a hands-on technical environment and learning clean room and lab procedures.
• Attention to detail and willingness to learn HDD teardown and failure analysis methods.

Preferred Qualifications

• Exposure to optical microscopy, SEM, AFM, Raman, ToF-SIMS, materials characterization, sample preparation, clean room work, manufacturing processes, or reliability testing.
• Interest in HDD, semiconductor, storage, failure analysis, materials science, product reliability, or physical root-cause investigation.
• Experience documenting lab findings and communicating technical conclusions to a broader team.