Software Engineer (Apps) at Western Digital
San Jose, CA
—
Aug 10, 2026
San Jose, CA
Sep 24, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
An early-career full-stack software developer role building AI-powered internal engineering tools at a large storage hardware company. The work centers on integrating LLMs and RAG pipelines into production applications, developing telemetry monitoring tooling for HDD products, and shipping features across the full stack — UI, REST APIs, backend services, and databases — primarily in Python. Suited to candidates currently pursuing or recently completing a CS degree with 0–2 years of experience.
Junior level · San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 410 people in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 310–530
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $217,796 (middle half $177,469–$231,052).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Aug 12, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (7)
This role is explicitly part of WD's early career development program targeting 0–2+ years of experience, which drives the Junior seniority classification despite the breadth of the tech stack described.
The posting states the candidate must be 'currently pursuing a BS degree in Computer Science or a related field' — this is a current-enrollment requirement rather than a completed degree requirement, so the degree requirement is set to None.
No explicit salary figures are provided; the posting references a salary range applicable to CA, CO, and NY but does not publish the numbers.
The role is classified as Software Developers (15-1252) rather than Data Scientists (15-2051) because the primary work is building and shipping full-stack production applications; AI/ML integration is a component of that work, not the primary occupation.
React, Tailwind CSS, Vite, Llama.cpp, Hugging Face, Linux, and JIRA appear in the tech stack narrative section rather than the Required qualifications block, so they are marked as preferred.
Git and Bitbucket are listed together as interchangeable version control tools; they are captured as one skill with Bitbucket as an alternative.
The right-to-work requirement (no immigration sponsorship) is a hiring gate but is not a skill or degree — noted here for the hiring manager's awareness.
Read the full posting
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