Vice President of Platform Engineering

Job Description

The VP of Engineering for Platforms will lead the engineering organization responsible for designing, developing, and scaling next-generation, high-density hardware storage architectures. This role owns the execution of the storage platform roadmap—spanning ultra-dense JBODs and storage servers. You will manage a cross-functional department of hardware, firmware, and manufacturing operations engineers to deliver reliable, highly serviceable, and cost-efficient hardware storage solutions optimized for hyperscale datacenters and modern AI workloads.

Core Responsibilities

• Strategic Execution: Drive the development lifecycles of next-generation high-capacity storage enclosures from initial concept through architecture, board bring-up, validation, and global high-volume manufacturing. 

• Engineering Leadership: Build, manage, and mentor a high-performance team of engineering directors, managers, and principal architects across electrical, mechanical, firmware, and operations domains. 

• Manufacturing Operations & CM Governance: Oversee the manufacturing engineering and operations teams responsible for transitioning designs from the lab to the factory floor. Own product delivery through Contract Manufacturing (CM) execution, ensuring seamless handoffs, yields, and quality controls and acting as the executive escalation point. 

• NPI & Mass Production Lifecycle: Drive early-stage prototype NPI (New Product Introduction) builds, factory bring-up, and engineering validation tests (EVT/DVT/PVT), while establishing the processes required to scale smoothly into high-volume mass production. 

• Vendor & Supply Chain Management: Lead technical engagements and design reviews with silicon suppliers, component vendors, and CM partners to enforce Design for Manufacturability (DFM), assembly (DFA), and cost-reduction targets. 

• Operational Excellence: Oversee the departmental budget, capital allocation for lab instrumentation, headcount planning, factory tooling costs, and organizational risk mitigation strategies. 

• Customer knowledge: Demonstrate deep understanding of customers and their data center ecosystems to inform technical product development.  

️ Technical & Operations Domain Expertise 

• High-Speed Bus Interfaces: Directional oversight on complex multi-layer PCB design incorporating cutting-edge signaling interfaces like PCIe Gen 6/7, SAS (12G/24G), SATA, and high-speed SERDES. 

• Chassis & Power Engineering: Ensuring physical architectures successfully balance high disk/flash densities with strict thermal dynamics, airflow constraints, and robust Power Distribution Networks (PDN). 

• Industrial & Manufacturing Scaling: Deep understanding of manufacturing test development, structural test metrics, assembly line optimization, and scaling supply chain logistics for complex electromechanical assemblies. 

Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial/Manufacturing Engineering, or a highly related technical field.  

• Experience: 15+ years of hands-on engineering experience, including 8+ years in multi-layered senior management roles, leading teams of 50+ employees, geographically spread in US and Asia, directly handling enterprise hardware platforms and NPI-to-mass-production lifecycles.  

• Proven track record of delivering programs on-time and successful ramp into high volume production 

• 8+ years of experience working directly with tier-1 & tier-2 enterprise customers.  Customer interface to understand requirements, propose solutions and architecture, and establish long-term engineering/exec-level relationships.  

• CM & Vendor Management: Proven track record of managing tier-1 global Contract Manufacturers (CMs) or Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) to deliver hardware at hyperscale volumes. 

• Communications: Outstanding executive communication skills with a proven capability to articulate complex technical trade-offs (e.g., design tolerance vs. manufacturing yield vs. BOM cost) directly to board-level stakeholders. 

• Track record of transforming engineering organizations through stronger methodology, platform reuse, schedule predictability, and improved first-pass execution. 

• Experience operating in a global company environment with distributed teams across the Americas, Asia, and EMEA. 

Additional Information

WD is committed to providing equal opportunities to all applicants and employees and will not discriminate against any applicant or employee based on their race, color, ancestry, religion (including religious dress and grooming standards), sex (including pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, breastfeeding or related medical conditions), gender (including a person’s gender identity, gender expression, and gender-related appearance and behavior, whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth), age, national origin, sexual orientation, medical condition, marital status (including domestic partnership status), physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, protected medical and family care leave, Civil Air Patrol status, military and veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics. We also prohibit harassment of any individual on any of the characteristics listed above. Our non-discrimination policy applies to all aspects of employment. We comply with the laws and regulations set forth in the "Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal” poster. Our pay transparency policy is available HERE

WD thrives on the power and potential of diversity. As a global company, we believe the most effective way to embrace the diversity of our customers and communities is to mirror it from within. We believe the fusion of various perspectives results in the best outcomes for our employees, our company, our customers, and the world around us. We are committed to an inclusive environment where every individual can thrive through a sense of belonging, respect and contribution.

WD is committed to offering opportunities to applicants with disabilities and ensuring all candidates can successfully navigate our careers website and our hiring process. Please contact us at [email protected] to advise us of your accommodation request. In your email, please include a description of the specific accommodation you are requesting as well as the job title and requisition number of the position for which you are applying.

Based on our experience, we anticipate that the application deadline will be 01/03/2027 (3 months from posting), although we reserve the right to close the application process sooner if we hire an applicant for this position before the application deadline. If we are not able to hire someone from this role before the application deadline, we will update this posting with a new

Compensation & Benefits Details

• An employee’s pay position within the salary range may be based on several factors including but not limited to (1) relevant education; qualifications; certifications; and experience; (2) skills, ability, knowledge of the job; (3) performance, contribution and results; (4) geographic location; (5) shift; (6) internal and external equity; and (7) business and organizational needs.
• The salary range is what we believe to be the range of possible compensation for this role at the time of this posting.  We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and this range is only applicable for jobs to be performed in California, Colorado, New York or remote jobs that can be performed in California, Colorado and New York.  This range may be modified in the future.
• If your position is non-exempt, you are eligible for overtime pay pursuant to company policy and applicable laws.  You may also be eligible for shift differential pay, depending on the shift to which you are assigned.

• You will be eligible to be considered for bonuses under either WD’s Short Term Incentive Plan (“STI Plan”) or the Sales Incentive Plan (“SIP”) which provides incentive awards based on Company and individual performance, depending on your role and your performance. You may be eligible to participate in our annual Long-Term Incentive (LTI) program, which consists of restricted stock units (RSUs) or cash equivalents, pursuant to the terms of the LTI plan. Please note that not all roles are eligible to participate in the LTI program, and not all roles are eligible for equity under the LTI plan. RSU awards are also available to eligible new hires, subject to WD's Standard Terms and Conditions for Restricted Stock Unit Awards.

• We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid vacation time; paid sick leave; medical/dental/vision insurance; life, accident and disability insurance; tax-advantaged flexible spending and health savings accounts; employee assistance program; other voluntary benefit programs such as supplemental life and AD&D, legal plan, pet insurance, critical illness, accident and hospital indemnity; tuition reimbursement; transit; the Applause Program; employee stock purchase plan; and the WD Savings 401(k) Plan.
• Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole discretion unless and until paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole discretion, consistent with the law.

Notice To Candidates: Please be aware that WD and its subsidiaries will never request payment as a condition for applying for a position or receiving an offer of employment. Should you encounter any such requests, please report it immediately to WD Ethics Helpline or email [email protected].

Compensation: 307300 to 409700 (USD) (YEARLY)