Senior Software Engineer

At Western Digital, our vision is to power global innovation and push the boundaries of technology to make what you thought was once impossible, possible. Our technology has helped people put a man on the moon and capture the first‑ever picture of a black hole. We offer an expansive portfolio of technologies, HDDs, and platforms for business, creative professionals, and consumers under our Western Digital®, WD®, ™ brands.

Western Digital is a key partner to some of the largest and highest‑growth organizations worldwide, enabling systems that make cities safer and more connected and powering data centers behind many of the world’s biggest companies. Together, we can build the future of data storage.

WDC is a leading innovator in Enterprise Storage Networking. We are looking for a passionate and skilled Dev Ops Engineer with Linux Kernel and tools expertise to build end‑to‑end automation for firmware development and system validation. The role includes creating custom Linux kernel patches to enable feature development and upstream kernel changes, as well as exercising strong PCIe/NVMe protocol knowledge and familiarity with Ethernet and PCIe analyzers.

• Design reusable Python/Bash libraries and CLIs for firmware build, test, and regression.
• Integrate Docker, Jenkins/Git Lab CI, Azure Dev Ops, Gerrit/Git, Jira, and test management systems.
• Create custom Linux kernel patches and upstream them.
• Enable firmware developers with unit test harnesses, lint/format utilities, and emulation adapters.
• Implement telemetry/ETL pipelines for coverage, reliability, and performance KPIs.
• Collaborate across firmware, hardware, and ASIC teams; document standards and best practices.

• 10+ years of system‑level programming in C (and some assembly) with a strong track record of shipping low‑level code.
• Deep understanding of Linux OS internals: processes, scheduling, memory management (paging, MMU, slab/slub allocators), VFS, block subsystems, networking stack.
• Direct experience modifying or up streaming Linux kernel code, not just using kernel APIs.
• Comfort with hardware–software boundaries: interrupts, DMA, device registers, firmware handoff, PCIe, IOMMU, ACPI/DT, boot sequence.
• Automation experience in firmware/system validation.
• Expert Python;
  Linux kernel modules;
  Bash; working C/C++ for firmware hooks;
  Power Shell as needed.
• PyTest/Robot Framework; hardware‑in‑the‑loop experience.
• CI/CD expertise (pipelines‑as‑code, artifacts, secrets, flaky test management).
• PCIe/NVMe, DMA/interrupts, RTOS; lab debugging with logic/protocol analyzers.
• Tool integration with Gerrit/Git, Jira, test management, results databases.
• Proven log analysis and failure bucketing; strong communication/documentation.

• Proficiency with Linux kernel build system, Kconfig, cross‑compilation, git bisection, patch submission workflow.
• Prior contributions to LKML or to a major subsystem tree.
• Ability to follow kernel coding style, patch series etiquette, and review cycles.
• Strong debugging skills: perf, ftrace, bpftrace, kgdb, crash dumps, static analysis.
• Experience with CI for kernel builds and regression testing, especially with custom hardware.
• CMake/Bazel; cross‑compilers; artifact signing.
• Data stack (SQLite/Postgre
  
  SQL, Pandas);
  Grafana/Power
  
  BI dashboards.
• Prior storage firmware or networking ASIC validation experience.

Western Digital 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,…