James Taylor, PMP

Experience

• 

  Maxtor

  Jul 1997 - May 2006

  Staff Engineering Technician

  Qualifying Enterprise Disk DrivesRan Experiments to help Development Team

• 

  Seagate

  Jan 2006 - Jan 2010

  Sr Engineering Specialist
• 

  Seagate Technology

  May 2010 - Nov 2011

  Reliability Engineer II

  Managed all aspects of Reliability lab hardware and test systems

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  SMART Storage Systems

  Nov 2011 - Aug 2013

  Sr. Failure Analysis Engineer

  • Led root cause analysis efforts for customer failures, driving corrective actions to improve product quality and customer satisfaction.• Developed and implemented the enterprise reliability process, ensuring continuous improvement in manufacturing failure analysis.• Collaborated with cross-functional teams to demonstrate reliability and enhance product quality at SMART Storage Systems.

• 

  SanDisk®

  Aug 2013 - Mar 2016

  Managed a team of 8 Reliability Engineers, Software Developers, Quality Program Managers• Directed qualification and sustaining programs for SSD lifecycles, ensuring on-time delivery and budget compliance.• Led cross-functional teams to qualify programs in parallel, reducing customer defect discovery by 15%.• Recruited and developed team members to enhance capabilities and support expanded responsibilities. Managed a team of 6 Reliability Engineers, Software Developers, while leading the Manufacturing Quality team of 5 • Led the qualification of a new international manufacturing facility, improving outgoing quality and increasing customer satisfaction rates. • Developed and mentored team members, fostering growth and enhancing team capabilities. • Directed quality and reliability efforts on sustaining programs using SPC, earning best-in-class quality 5 of 8 quarters. • Quality Lead on product development teams driving quality and reliability into the design• Reliability process development ensuring standardization across all enterprise product qualifications• Coordinated DFMEA and PFMEA activities with engineering teams • Developed and implemented manufacturing quality and reliability monitoring programs providing the corporation with an effective platform to protect the customer from field excursions• Led failure analysis teams investigating defects and determining failure mode root causes, and corrective actions

  • Manager II, Reliability Engineering

    Feb 2016 - Mar 2016

  • Manager, Reliability Engineering

    Jun 2014 - Feb 2016

  • Staff Reliability Engineer

    Mar 2014 - Jun 2014

  • Sr. Reliability Engineer

    Aug 2013 - Mar 2014
• 

  Western Digital

  Mar 2016 - Apr 2019

  Reliability Engineering Manager

  Managed a team of 8 Reliability Engineers, Software Developers, Quality Program Managers• Developed and implemented a comprehensive reliability program management process for Solid-State Drive (SSD), reducing customer defect discovery by 15% and increasing satisfaction rates. • Conducted risk analysis and delivered actionable solutions at key milestones for executive review.• Mentored the transition to Scaled Agile Framework principles, fostering cross-functional alignment, and achieving on-time milestone delivery.• Engaged directly with customers as the quality SME to meet all feature acceptance criteria. Show less

• 

  Dell Technologies

  Apr 2019 - now

  Developed and launched a software validation process (UAT) for DTIAS Software, boosting customer satisfaction by 20%.• Recruited and led a cross-functional team to achieve project goals and improve operational efficiency.• Designed and maintained lab server infrastructure to support qualification efforts, ensuring consistent testing and reliable validation results.• Oversaw Agile-driven software release qualifications, enhancing process quality and on-time delivery.• Streamlined customer feedback loops to better categorize and escalate issues for rapid resolution. Show less Technical Program Manager that successfully delivered the first Solid State Drive designed by Dell Technologies, completing the server qualification 10% quicker than any previous supplier.• Drove customer validation testing into our CI/CD pipeline resulting in far less defects discovered during customer qualification, leading to an accelerated qualification.• Managed a global team of cross-functional technical leads to ensure on-time milestone delivery and strategic alignment.• Applied Agile methodologies as Product Owner, improving team efficiency and project results.• Delivered executive and customer reviews, elevating product transparency and decision-making.• Instituted operational metrics to continuously improve process efficiency in system development using JIRA, MATLAB and Confluence. Show less

  • Senior Principal Quality Engineer

    Feb 2024 - now

  • Consultant, Technical Product Management

    Jan 2023 - Feb 2024

  • Senior Principal Systems Development Engineer

    Apr 2019 - Jan 2023