Senior Talent Acquisition Manager – Strategic Initiatives & Talent Insights
Western Digital · San Jose, California, United States · hybrid
WD is building the infrastructure behind the AI-driven data economy.
As AI scales, so does data. Every interaction, every model, every system generates data that must be stored, managed, and made accessible over time. That’s where we come in.
We combine deep engineering expertise with global-scale manufacturing to deliver the storage systems that make AI possible, powering hyperscale data centers, cloud platforms, and enterprise infrastructure worldwide.
This isn’t theoretical work. It’s real systems, at real scale, people solving some of the hardest challenges in technology today.
We’re looking for people who want to build, solve, and operate at that level.
Join us and let’s shape the future of data.
The role
We hire roughly 3000-5000 people a year across four continents — manufacturing technicians, early-career engineers, corporate professionals, and executives. Behind every one of those hires is a decision: where to invest, which pipelines to build, which programs to scale. We're looking for the leader who turns our hiring data into those decisions and turns those decisions into programs that ship.
This is not a recruiting role. You won't carry requisitions. You'll own the strategy, insight, and program engine that makes our recruiters, hiring leaders, and executives better at what they do.
About the team
Global Talent Acquisition and Mobility Insights & Programs serves as the strategic arm of our global Talent Acquisition organization. Rather than recruiting directly, we design and implement programs, processes, and hiring practices that help recruiting teams and hiring leaders attract, engage, and hire exceptional talent.
The function has two teams. Strategic Offerings — the team you'll lead — owns insight, workforce intelligence, strategic programs and talent brands. Talent Success partners with our recruiting teams and hiring managers, customer-success style, to make sure what we build is adopted and delivers.
Our FY27 agenda is organized around five capabilities: Workforce & Talent Intelligence; Critical & Future Skills Pipeline; Scalable Delivery & RPO; Recruiting Motions & Talent Pathways; and Client & Hiring Manager Enablement. You'll own the first outright and shape the rest.
What you'll do
Turn hiring data into executive insight
- Own the quarterly business overviews (QBOs) and business reviews (QBRs) that Talent Acquisition presents to the CEO and executive team — and that may reach the board. Decide what matters, cut what doesn't, and make the story land at that altitude.
- Build our workforce and talent intelligence capability: hiring demand, pipeline health, time-to-fill, cost, quality and labor-market signals across Direct Labor, Early Career, Indirect Labor and Executive hiring.
- Partner with Finance and HR on annual operating plan (AOP) headcount planning, so hiring capacity matches business demand before reqs open.
Lead the strategic initiatives portfolio
- Run a multi-program portfolio end to end — intake, prioritization, business cases, roadmaps, governance and benefits tracking.
- Drive cross-regional programs across the US, APAC and EMEA, from RPO scale-up to new talent pathways for critical and future skills.
- Bring a point of view on where AI and automation should take on high-volume, repeatable work, and where human judgment must stay.
Build and lead the team
- Lead three direct reports: a Talent Insights & Workforce Planning Lead, a Program Manager and a Talent Brand Manager.
- Set clear priorities and standards, coach for growth, and build a team known for rigor and follow-through.
- Keep talent brand connected to the data — what candidates see should reflect where we need to hire.
Required
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, HR, Analytics, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Economics or a related field, or equivalent experience.
- 10+ years of progressive experience across TA, HR, people analytics, workforce planning, strategy or operations, including 4+ years leading people.
- Proven ownership of workforce or headcount planning in a global, matrixed organization of 10,000+ employees.
- Hands-on analytics fluency: metric frameworks, forecasting models and executive dashboards (Power BI, Tableau or Workday reporting).
- Track record leading multi-region, cross-functional programs from charter to adoption.
- Executive presence: able to brief VP and C-level leaders with a clear recommendation, not just data.
Preferred
- Experience developing new offerings, practices, or process design in manufacturing, semiconductor or high-tech environments with large direct labor populations.
- Experience with talent insights site selection, labor market mapping or location strategy.
- Working knowledge of Workday (HCM, Recruiting or Adaptive Planning) and modern ATS platforms.
- Employer brand or EVP experience, or close partnership with marketing.
- Design thinking, Agile, PMP, PgMP, Prosci or similar certification.
- Experience with RPO models, vendor economics or shared services design
- Experience with AI and automation
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 jobs.accommodations@wdc.com 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 02/05/2026 (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 this posting with a new anticipated application deadline.
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 locati