Principal Engineer, Cloud Storage Architect

The Cloud Storage Architect will serve as a key industry intelligence leader responsible for continuously gathering evaluating and translating the latest advancements in cloud and clustered storage architectures into actionable insights for Western Digitals test and validation teams. By monitoring how major cloud providers design deploy and operate large-scale storage systemsincluding S3-compatible object storage distributed clusters and hyperscale data durability modelsthe architect will help ensure HDD test strategies accurately reflect real-world customer environments. This role will actively share emerging cloud-storage trends workload behaviors and architectural patterns with System Test Automated Cluster Environment and HDD qualification teams enabling the creation of more representative robust and forward-looking tests.

Key Responsibilities

Continuously gather and evaluate current cloud and clustered storage industry practices including architectures deployment models workload behaviors durability methods and scaling patterns used by major cloud providers.

Monitor and analyze hyperscaler storage trendssuch as S3 object storage evolution erasure-coding strategies zoned-storage adoption multi-tier storage models and distributed cluster topologiesto ensure internal teams stay aligned with real-world customer environments.

Translate up-to-date cloud storage insights into actionable guidance for System Test ACE and HDD qualification teams to develop more representative customer-centric test methodologies.

Identify gaps between existing HDD test flows and modern industry storage designs recommending new tests workloads cluster configurations or validation scenarios that better emulate cloud-scale usage patterns.

Collaborate with System Test teams to enhance HDD validation based on how cloud companies actually deploy drives manage fleets perform lifecycle operations and optimize storage performance and reliability.

Work with the ACE team to design cluster-level workloads and test architectures informed by current cloud storage engineering including S3 patterns object sizes concurrency and real customer traffic profiles.

Act as the internal subject matter expert on cloud and distributed storage regularly sharing findings documentation trend analyses and architectural summaries with engineering validation and leadership groups.

Evaluate emerging storage technologies and standards such as SMR ZNS object-tiering strategies or cloud-native filesystem trends and recommend their incorporation into future HDD testing.

Advise HDD qualification teams on cloud-driven reliability expectations informing improvements in stress testing durability tests long-run cluster experiments and field-emulation workloads.

Produce clear technical reports briefs and knowledge-sharing materials summarizing evolving cloud storage behaviors helping all test teams stay current with industry direction.

Qualifications :

Bachelors or Masters degree in Computer Science Computer Engineering or related fields.

8 years experience designing or operating distributed cloud storage systems.

Fluency in cloud computing concepts architecture and technologies with hands-on experience in designing and implementing cloud solutions.

Expertise with object storage technologies (HDFS TOS AliYun LongXi OS MinIO AWS S3 Azure Blob GCP Cloud Storage).

Excellent communication and cross-team collaboration capabilities.

Ability to translate complex cloud architecture concepts into actionable test improvements.

Analytical data-driven mindset with strong problem-solving skills.

Additional Information :

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.

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Remote Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time