SSD Customer Qualification, Director

Samsung Semiconductor Inc. (SSI) is advancing the world’s technology. As a leader in Memory, System, LSI and LCD technologies, our US teams contribute to breakthroughs in 5G, SOC, memory and display. With our global perspective and diversity of thought, we proudly serve our customers around the world. We are looking for team members who share our commitment to learning and growth and excel when collaborating within and across teams.

SSI is headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley and is a wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. - the #1 employer in the world (Forbes, 2020 & 2021) and top patent-holder in the U.S. Want to advance the world’s technology with us?

Job Title

Director,  SSD Customer Qualification 

Location

San Jose, CA 

Job #

41105

INSIDE THIS BUSINESS GROUP:

The Technology Enabling Development Lab (TED) Our core development focus is the host interface firmware layer that sits in the intersection of system software and flash management firmware. This key host interface firmware technology drives Samsung’s breakthrough V-NAND technology and enables our customers to power performance-oriented, demanding, enterprise-class applications ranging from hyper-scale data centers, to big data processing, to software defined virtualized storage arrays and infrastructures

OVERVIEW & IMPACT:

We are seeking a dynamic and high energy Director to manage our highly regarded Customer Qualification team in the Enterprise and Datacenter SSD group. This role will manage the deliverables and resources of a team of more than 50 to meet high level organization priorities and goals. Summarizing and presenting team progress, achievements and challenges to upper management will be critical for this position. This role will have the opportunity to plan and manage execution of SAS and NVMe SSD qualification on customer systems that include enterprise servers and enterprise storage systems including Hyper-converged, SAN, NAS, Unified and Scale out systems.  In this role you will work directly with customers to provide an excellent customer experience by assisting and managing the highest quality expectations.  You will research customer product portfolios and understand use case and access patterns as they apply to SSDs in these systems

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Plan and manage execution of enterprise SSD qualifications in customer systems.
• Communicate directly with customers to understand qualification processes and test plans. Report status of qualifications and manage customer expectations.
• Manage and coordinate internal and customer test engineers to execute qual plans as per schedule. Teams will be both local and remote.
• Triage test failures and do a first level FA. Design and execute experiments to root cause defects and verify fixes in coordination with development teams.
• Provide feedback to functional test teams on issues seen in customer quals to better functional test coverage.
• Triage customer field issues and provide leadership and support for timely resolution of customer issues.
• Provide guidance to the Automation team to continue to improve and add to the existing framework.

QUALIFICATIONS & REQUIRED SKILLS:

• 5+ years of experience managing dynamic and highly efficient engineer teams
• 15+ years of  system level experience with testing or development of enterprise servers and enterprise storage systems.
• Experience with customer interface (i.e. organizing and conducting meetings with customer)
• Knowledge of enterprise storage/server system technologies
• Expertise in storage test tools such as performance benchmarks, IO stress tools, protocol certifications, Test execution and bug management tools.
• Experience with at least 1 storage protocol like NVMe or SAS
• Working knowledge of SSD technology

Preferred Qualifications: 

• BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with 20+ years of experience. MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with 18+ Years of Industry Experience or PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with 15 yrs of Industry Experience Preferred.

Additionally, we look for the following universal qualities in all candidates:

• Resourceful Achiever: self-motivated and proactive, you flex to try new approaches and creatively solve problems 
• Avid Learner: you thrive with challenges, seek continuous growth and improvement, and seek data to prove your hypotheses
• Devoted Professional: you are diligent and deliberate in your work, leveraging your expertise to deliver results without ego  
• Thoughtful Collaborator: you build relationships across teams, offering help and welcoming ideas from others to drive work forward in an inclusive manner

PREFERED SKILLS

• Proficiency in server operating systems especially system debug tools such as system logs
• Scripting Language such as PERL or PYTHON

COVID-19 POLICIES

• Successful applicants must comply with company COVID-19 policies, which are subject to change in response to public health, regulatory and business circumstances
• Current policies are subject only to emergency or legally-required exceptions and include: mandatory reporting of vaccination status; vaccination requirement for office access, external meetings and business travel; mask usage in office; and daily screening procedures at offices