Analyst 5 Corporate Strategy

Role Overview:

This strategic leader will drive organizational growth by developing and executing long-term strategic plans, conducting in-depth market analysis, and providing actionable insights to senior leadership. Leveraging a deep background in technical operations and product strategy (with a focus on infrastructure and efficiency), this individual will foster cross-functional collaboration to ensure business priorities are executed with financial rigor and operational excellence.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Strategic Partnership & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Executive Thought Partnership: Serve as a strategic advisor to Product, Engineering, and Sales leadership, translating complex technical roadmaps into business-level strategic insights.

• Investment Prioritization: Collaborate closely with Finance & Strategy (F&S) to provide critical context for capital expenditure (CapEx) and operational expenditure (OpEx) decisions.

• Cross-Functional Alignment: Act as a key liaison between technical and non-technical teams, ensuring that long-term infrastructure investments align with the company’s broader commercial goals.

Operational Excellence & Data-Driven Strategy

• Infrastructure Economics & TCO Modeling: Lead the strategy, design, and operationalization of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) models. Use these models to identify cost-saving opportunities, optimize resource allocation, and drive long-term margin improvement.

• Performance Metrics: Define and monitor KPIs that bridge technical performance (e.g., system reliability/scale) with business health (e.g., unit economics/customer acquisition cost).

• Process Engineering: Design and implement standardized systems for managing changes to complex planning workflows, ensuring risks are mitigated and dependencies are managed across the organization.

Required:

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, business or related field
• Relevant years of experience with strong exposure to semi-conductor industry, experience in top tier management consulting/investment bank/private equity followed by technology company
• Willingness to work in a fast-paced environment
• Strong judgment and decisiveness when dealing with timely, deadline-driven, content-related issues and concerns
• Insatiable curiosity to learn new domains, keep up with industry innovation, and constantly ask ‘why’
• Experience using data and metrics to determine and drive business decisions
• Experience in driving change management across complex organizational structures
• Strong storage industry experience

Preferred:

• STEM Bachelors
• MBA/MS

Skills:

• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills
• Excellent leadership and communication abilities, strong financial skills
• Excellent written (memos and presentations) and verbal communication skills; timely communication

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 06-01-2026 (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.

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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.
• If your position is non-exempt, you are eligible for overtime pay pursuant to company policy and applicable laws.  You may also be eligible for shift differential pay, depending on the shift to which you are assigned.

• You will be eligible to be considered for bonuses under either WD’s Short Term Incentive Plan (“STI Plan”) or the Sales Incentive Plan (“SIP”) 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 WD'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 WD 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.

Notice To Candidates: Please be aware that WD and its subsidiaries will never request payment as a condition for applying for a position or receiving an offer of employment. Should you encounter any such requests, please report it immediately to WD Ethics Helpline or email [email protected].