Western Digital

Data storage devices & solutions maker
Last updated:
January 25, 2026
Company details
HQ
San Jose, CA
HEADCOUNT
10000+
ORG TYPE
Corporate
SECTOR
Technology & Digital
About the company
Western Digital is a data storage company that designs and sells hard disk drives, flash storage, and storage platforms used by consumers, creators, and large cloud and enterprise customers. Western Digital sells products under brands including WD and SanDisk Professional. The company’s work spans hardware engineering, firmware, manufacturing, supply chain, and enterprise-facing software and services. Western Digital operates globally across multiple engineering and manufacturing sites.
Locations and presence
Western Digital lists corporate headquarters in San Jose, California and a large set of global office locations across regions. Western Digital early-career roles are often site-based, and the company states that new college graduate and intern roles align to local site working arrangements, with hybrid collaboration days in major U.S. offices.
Palpable Score
70.9
/ 100
Western Digital has clear early-career entry points through paid internships and a defined new college graduate pathway, plus a named LAUNCH program that adds structure after hiring. Hiring transparency and outcomes are more mixed, because Western Digital describes high-level steps but does not publish timelines, feedback norms, or cohort results. Pay transparency is better than many peers in the U.S. because job postings often include salary ranges, while stability is harder to judge given the company’s recent workforce contraction.
Pillar 1: Early-career access

Score

16.5
/ 20
  • The company runs paid internships and confirms internships are paid and new college graduate roles are full-time.
  • Western Digital publishes clear eligibility rules for new college graduate roles, including a “within the past 24 months” window for first degree-leveraging roles.
  • The company posts new graduate-only roles across multiple countries and functions on the main jobs platform, which signals recurring entry-level hiring rather than one-off junior openings.

Pillar 2: Hiring fairness and transparency

Score

13.1
/ 20
  • The company explains a consistent high-level flow of application review, recruiter screening, and hiring manager interviews for students and graduates.
  • Western Digital has widely shared candidate-reported patterns of online assessments and multi-round technical and manager interviews, which suggests structure but uneven experiences by team.
  • The company does not publish role-by-role timelines, feedback expectations, or assessment rubrics for early-career hiring, which limits transparency.

Pillar 3: Learning and support

Score

14.6
/ 20
  • The company describes the LAUNCH program as a 12-month set of programs and events for new college hires, including leadership exposure, curated development activities, and cohort networking.
  • Western Digital positions internships as business-relevant project work and showcases intern learning stories through the company blog.
  • The company does not publicly set out a consistent mentorship or rotation model across all early-career roles, so learning support likely varies by site and function.

Pillar 4: Pay fairness and stability

Score

14.6
/ 20
  • The company publishes salary ranges on many U.S. job postings and explains how ranges apply (for example, by state and eligible remote locations).
  • Western Digital states that internships are paid and that new college graduate roles are full-time employment, which reduces early-career pay risk versus contract-heavy entry routes.
  • The company’s recent employee-count drop increases uncertainty on stability for early-career hires, especially in functions tied to business cycles.

Pillar 5: Early-career outcomes

Score

12.1
/ 20
  • The company states that Western Digital prioritizes hiring former interns into new college graduate roles, which is a concrete pipeline outcome signal even without published conversion rates.
  • Western Digital provides a defined post-hire cohort experience via the LAUNCH program, which can support early progression through internal exposure and networks.
  • The company does not publish early-career retention, intern conversion, or promotion-rate metrics, and public workforce totals show a recent decline, which caps confidence on outcomes.

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