Senior Direct Product Management

Company Description

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.

At our core, Western Digital is a company of problem solvers. People achieve extraordinary things given the right technology. For decades, we’ve been doing just that—our technology 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 alike under our Western Digital®, WD®, WD_BLACK™, and SanDisk® Professional brands.

We are a key partner to some of the largest and highest-growth organizations in the world. From enabling systems to make cities safer and more connected, to powering the data centers behind many of the world’s biggest companies and hyperscale cloud providers, to meeting the massive and ever-growing data storage needs of the AI era, Western Digital is fueling a brighter, smarter future.

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

Job Description

We are seeking a Senior Director of Product Management to lead the development of innovative storage products that address the evolving challenges of data centers. This individual will work closely with our largest customers to understand their needs, solve critical storage problems, and deliver profitable, high-impact solutions.

This role demands a deep understanding of enterprise storage, significant experience with cloud environments, and expertise in translating customer insights into actionable roadmaps. You will lead a team of product experts, driving strategy, execution, and success for the company and our customers.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and maintain tight relationships with key customers, deeply understanding their needs and motivations.
• Develop and execute a product roadmap that addresses customer challenges and delivers profitable, market-leading solutions.
• Serve as the customer’s advocate within the company, ensuring internal teams align with their goals.
• Drive strategic planning by synthesizing customer input, market trends, and technical insights into clear, actionable strategies.
• Lead and inspire a team of product experts and contributors to execute on customer goals.
• Present compelling strategies and tradeoffs to executive stakeholders and customer leadership.
• Navigate complex problems with many unknowns, breaking them down into simple, actionable plans.
• Balance competing priorities, weighing customer needs, technical feasibility, and business goals.
• Build consensus across cross-functional teams and secure buy-in for critical initiatives.

Qualifications

Required Skills and Qualifications

• Enterprise storage expertise with a strong foundation in either HDD or SSD technologies.
  • If no HDD experience, extensive interaction with enterprise SSDs and cloud environments is required.
• Cloud experience: Understanding how storage is used in the cloud and its integration into enterprise solutions.
• Strategic situational awareness: Ability to decipher unspoken customer needs, synthesize insights, and uncover opportunities.
• Strong big-picture thinking: Balance long-term strategy with immediate problem-solving.
• Excellent communication skills: Clearly articulate complex ideas to varied audiences and build compelling presentations.
• Proven ability to run executive-level meetings, influence stakeholders, and drive decisions.
• Exceptional customer obsession, with a deep understanding of their needs and a passion for solving problems.
• Demonstrated ownership: Ability to drive cross-functional teams to deliver results on time and on plan.
• Strong enterprise orientation, finding win-win outcomes and working collaboratively across teams.
• Leadership experience, with the ability to inspire, develop, and build high-performing teams.
• Outstanding organizational and time management skills.
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• Preferred Qualifications
• 10+ years of work experience in a technical role
• 5+ years of team leadership
• Technical degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or Mechanical Engineering.
• MBA or equivalent experience is an asset.

What You Bring

• Experience forming and executing strategies for enterprise storage solutions.
• A proven track record of successfully balancing priorities across technology, customer needs, and business goals.
• Situational awareness and the ability to drive actionable outcomes from ambiguity.
• Exceptional listening skills, a problem-solving mindset, and a customer-first orientation.

Additional Information

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, 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.

Western Digital 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.

Western Digital 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 05/12/2025 (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 anticipated application deadline.

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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.
• You will be eligible to participate in Western Digital’s Short-Term Incentive (STI) Plan, 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.