Sr Manager-Strategic Recruiting Initiatives & Talent Insights

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