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Western Digital Senior Engineer Wafer Manufacturing Metrology 
United States, California, San Jose 
923437107

04.09.2025
Company Description

Today’s exceptional challenges require your unique skills. Together, we can build the future of data storage.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

As a metrology engineer, you will be responsible for developing and implementing precise, robust, and high‐throughput solutions to control high volume manufacturing of complex, three dimensional thin film magnetic read/write head structures. Examples of projects include developing automated device inspection recipes to detect defects with machine learning and spectroscopic ellipsometer models to measure thin film thickness and index. To accomplish this objective, you will need to collaborate closely with process engineering teams that support wafer manufacturing operations.

  • Work independently with minimal supervision in the Manufacturing Metrology group to
    • Develop, document, optimize, and sustain automated inspection recipes and process control solutions
    • Develop and refine technical methods/processes to identify root causes of operational issues, process inefficiencies, and measurement deviations.
    • Establish accurate baseline measurements and qualification of metrology solutions by collaborating with cross-functional teams across the fab
    • Deploy robust metrology system calibration and correlation strategies
    • Identify and resolve equipment issues, collaborating with equipment engineering teams and tool vendors to ensure optimal tool performance.
  • Cross-train within Metrology Engineering to ensure seamless support coverage across teams.
  • Partner with engineering and quality teams to analyze real-time metrology data, identify process deviations, and implement automated corrective strategies to improve yield and reduce cycle time.
  • Summarize, document, and present results to technical and executive audiences to drive data-driven improvements.
  • Communicate effectively with both management and shop floor.
  • Display comfort and skill in presenting issues/findings.

Required:

  • B.S. or M.S. in physics, chemistry, engineering (chemical, mechanical, electrical), material science
  • Minimum of 0-3 years of work experience depending on education
  • Programming/scripting experience in any of SQL, Python, Matlab, JSL, C#, etc. required
  • Strong detail-oriented work habits.
  • Ability to complete projects on schedule
  • Practical understanding of electronics and mechatronics as applied to modern industrial measurement tools.

Preferred:

  • Engineers are required to be hands on (equipment, wafers) so clean room and wafer fabrication / processing experience is preferred
  • Practical knowledge of image processing (filtering, FFT, convolution, re-sampling, cropping, etc.) and computer vision (edge detection, object detection, feature matching, segmentation, thresholding, etc.) preferred
  • Experience in machine learning (unsupervised, supervised, classification, neural networks, etc.) and optimizing defect capture rate by confusion matrix analysis strongly preferred.

Skills:

  • Excellent skills in problem solving, data analysis, statistics, and both written and oral communications.

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 Western Digital’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 Western Digital’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 Western Digital 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.