At NetApp, innovation extends beyond software and firmware to the very core of our hardware and system design. Our drive qualification team plays a critical role in ensuring that every storage product we release meets the highest standards of quality, reliability, and performance.

As a Drive Qualification Engineer on our team, you’ll lead qualification efforts across new drive introductions and firmware sustainment programs. Our mission is to deliver timely, accurate testing and certification for NetApp storage products—enabling our customers to trust their data to our solutions. You’ll partner with internal engineering teams and external drive vendors, own qualification project outcomes, and help shape how we validate storage hardware at scale.

This role is ideal for someone who is technically deep, strategically minded, and comfortable leading complex work in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead drive qualification projects end to end, including test plan development, execution, and release readiness for new hardware and firmware updates.
• Design and implement subsystem-level test strategies that maximize coverage for HDD, SSD, and NVMe technologies across enterprise storage platforms.
• Analyze complex or atypical test failures, perform root cause analysis, and drive resolution with firmware, hardware, and platform engineering partners.
• Develop and maintain test automation, tooling, and scripts to improve efficiency, repeatability, and diagnostic capability.
• Make risk-based decisions on test scope, priorities, and mitigation strategies that directly influence project schedules and qualification outcomes.
• Represent the team in cross-functional meetings, clearly communicating strategy, risks, progress, and technical recommendations to stakeholders at multiple levels.
• Mentor junior engineers on test execution, log analysis, debugging techniques, and qualification best practices.
• Influence adjacent teams on testability, validation requirements, and qualification readiness throughout the product lifecycle.
• Proactively identify process gaps and drive improvements to team workflows, documentation, and qualification methodologies.

Requirements

• 5+ years of demonstrated experience leading hardware or storage qualification projects, including authoring and executing comprehensive test plans.
• Strong expertise in test design, log analysis, and root cause analysis for complex storage hardware issues.
• Proven ability to work independently on ambiguous problems, evaluate multiple data sources, and devise effective validation approaches.
• Experience developing test automation or diagnostic tooling (e.g., Python scripting) to support qualification and debugging.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills; able to explain technical strategy, risks, and trade-offs to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Track record of building productive relationships with cross-functional engineering teams and external vendor partners.
• Experience coordinating and leading multiple concurrent projects and influencing priorities to meet schedule and quality goals.

Preferred Skills

• Subject-matter expertise in one or more drive technologies (HDD, SSD, NVMe) and enterprise drive qualification processes.
• Working knowledge of Linux environments and storage system architectures.
• Understanding of storage protocols, RAID, encryption, and platform-level storage integration.
• Proficiency with JIRA, Confluence, or similar tools for project tracking and documentation.
• Comfortable leveraging AI tools to enhance productivity, research, troubleshooting, or process improvement; innovative use of AI is a plus.
• Experience using storage protocol analyzers (e.g., NVMe or SAS analyzer units) for debugging, validation, or performance analysis.
• Familiarity with firmware validation, regression testing, and sustaining qualification programs.

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, with 5+ years of relevant engineering or QA testing experience (drive or related hardware/software testing preferred).