Principal SSD Applications Engineer

Overview

The Principal SSD Applications Engineer is a customer-facing SSD technical leader responsible for complex issue resolution, technical enablement, product qualification, deployment, production ramp, sustaining support, and adoption of SSD products and solutions.

What you'll do

• Lead complex customer issue investigations, including issue replication, Level 1 debugging, root cause analysis, and failure analysis, and manage issues through resolution using Jira or an equivalent issue-tracking system.
• Drive customer issue prioritization, turnaround-time tracking, technical reviews, and escalation management while coordinating engineering, validation, quality, product management, field organizations, and ecosystem partners.
• Support customer qualification, platform integration, deployment, production ramp, sustaining activities, Level 1 performance testing, workload characterization, performance analysis, interoperability testing, validation, and technical troubleshooting for assigned SSD products and solutions.
• Communicate product capabilities, limitations, technical requirements, qualification criteria, deployment considerations, and technical findings through clear, accurate, actionable, and customer-appropriate communications.
• Own firmware release management, including release planning, deployment readiness, firmware change-list development, release documentation, approval coordination, customer communications, and technical input for customer-specific firmware requirements.
• Develop and maintain customer-facing technical documentation, including standard and custom datasheets, application notes, errata, firmware release communications, troubleshooting guides, and related technical collateral.
• Review Product Change Requests (PCRs) for impacts on documentation and customer deliverables.
• Deliver technical training, mentoring, and knowledge-sharing for Field Application Engineers (FAEs), Customer Quality Engineers (CQEs), Technical Customer Managers (TCMs), and support organizations.
• Align technical execution with qualification schedules, customer priorities, identified risks, and business commitments.
• Provide technical ownership and support for SSD management and diagnostic tools, including MSECLI, SuperDM, and Storage Executive, and coordinate tool-related issue resolution and enablement needs.
• Drive Design-for-Debug initiatives and incorporate customer and field feedback into Market Requirements Documents (MRDs), product readiness activities, and roadmap planning.
• Analyze recurring issues to improve product quality, reliability, usability, support readiness, and customer experience.

What you'll need

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline, with 13 or more years of relevant experience.
• Relevant experience in SSD technologies, storage systems, firmware engineering, hardware engineering, applications engineering, product engineering, validation engineering, technical support, or a related technical field.
• Deep expertise in SSD architecture, NAND Flash technologies, storage controllers, firmware interactions, enterprise or data center storage systems, and storage technologies and protocols, including NVMe, PCIe, SATA, and SAS.
• Proven experience leading customer escalations, issue replication, debugging, root cause analysis, failure analysis, and complex technical problem resolution.
• Experience supporting product qualification, deployment, production ramp, sustaining activities, and post-deployment customer support, including firmware release management, technical documentation, and customer or field enablement.
• Experience coordinating cross-functional technical investigations and managing issues through resolution using Jira or an equivalent issue-tracking system.
• Demonstrated ability to translate complex technical findings into clear, accurate, actionable, and audience-appropriate communications.
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, prioritization, and data-driven decision-making skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, presentation, collaboration, and stakeholder management capabilities.
• Demonstrated ability to provide technical leadership, influence decisions, and lead strategic initiatives across global and matrixed organizations.
• Equivalent combinations of education, training, certifications, and experience may be considered in accordance with company policy and applicable requirements.

Nice to have

• Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline.
• Experience supporting SSD products across qualification, validation, deployment, production ramp, firmware release, sustaining support, and post-deployment customer support in enterprise, data center, hyperscale, cloud, OEM, or other large-scale storage environments.
• Expertise in SSD performance characterization, workload analysis, reliability engineering, product qualification, validation methodologies, interoperability testing, firmware release management, change control processes, Product Change Requests (PCRs), and Market Requirements Documents (MRDs).
• Familiarity with SSD management and diagnostic tools, automation frameworks, validation environments, technical data analysis, and customer qualification workflows, with proficiency in Python, PowerShell, Perl, Shell scripting, or comparable automation technologies.
• Experience working with customers, OEMs, hyperscalers, cloud service providers, ecosystem partners, or global engineering organizations and collaborating with Technical Customer Managers, Field Application Engineers, Customer Quality Engineers, product teams, and other customer-facing organizations.
• Experience translating field feedback and customer requirements into product improvements, technical requirements, readiness plans, and roadmap recommendations; developing technical documentation and delivering training; and applying or leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to improve engineering workflows, technical analysis, issue triage, automation, knowledge management, documentation, or customer support.

Details

• Location: Hyderabad, Telangana, India, and Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.