Principal Engineer, SSD Validation

About the role

Micron is looking for a Principal Engineer, SSD Validation to provide technical leadership for SSD firmware validation and test architecture across enterprise, data center and automotive SSD products. The role owns validation strategy, automation frameworks and quality systems that ensure product reliability, performance, scalability and manufacturing readiness, and leads cross-functional collaboration to resolve complex firmware issues.

Key responsibilities

• Lead SSD firmware test architecture, validation strategy and quality systems for enterprise SSD products.
• Design validation solutions covering functionality, performance, reliability, QoS, power loss protection, FTL, garbage collection, power management and security.
• Build and optimize automation frameworks, long-duration stability tests and CI/CD validation pipelines.
• Lead root cause analysis of complex firmware issues such as system hangs, drive drops and compatibility failures.
• Define validation methodologies, metrics and coverage plans, and align firmware, hardware, NAND, system engineering and quality teams.
• Mentor engineers, take part in product architecture reviews and drive process optimization and test standardization.
• Stay aware of emerging storage technologies such as PCIe 5.0/6.0, NVMe 2.0, ZNS, CXL and automotive storage requirements.
• Use AI-assisted tools, LLMs and intelligent agents to improve validation efficiency, data analysis and automation, within organizational standards and legal requirements.

Required profile

• B.Sc. or higher in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Microelectronics or equivalent.
• Over 8 years of experience in SSD firmware validation or development.
• Preferred: experience with enterprise, data center or automotive SSD products, end-to-end validation systems, and storage-related patents or publications.

Required skills

• Deep expertise in NVMe, PCIe and SATA protocols, FTL, GC, wear leveling, PLP and NAND Flash.
• Proficiency in Linux, Python, C and shell scripting, and automated test framework development.
• Hands-on experience with Fio, nvme-cli, PyNVMe and related debug and performance tools.
• Firmware and hardware co-debugging, reliability validation and mass-production test systems.
• Structured root cause analysis, quality engineering and validation coverage methodologies.