The Program Manager for Early Career Programs (University Recruiting Team) will be a motivated and detail-oriented professional who plays a critical role in bringing our global early career strategy to life. Partnering closely with the Senior Manager of Global Programs, you’ll help execute and enhance our internship and early career initiatives—designing engaging experiences, managing operations, and ensuring programs are inclusive, impactful, and aligned with business priorities. 

As an Early Career Talent Program Manager, you will own delivering and optimizing the full lifecycle of early career programs—bringing our global strategy to life through exceptional execution. You’ll manage onboarding, orientation, engagement activities, skill development, and offboarding, while continuously improving processes to create a seamless and impactful experience. In this role, you’ll collaborate with teams across Recruiting, Organizational Development & Learning, Talent Insights, Marketing & Communications, and business leaders to ensure every program is engaging, inclusive, and aligned with organizational goals. Success in this role requires a balance of operational excellence, stakeholder partnership, and hands-on execution. 

Essential Duties and Responsibilities: 

Program Strategy & Design 

• Execute and enhance global internship and early career program frameworks—bringing established strategies to life through exceptional delivery and continuous improvement 

• Deliver structured, inclusive, and scalable experiences for interns and early career hires, ensuring programs are engaging, impactful, and aligned with business priorities 

• Develop curricula focused on professional skills, leadership foundations, business acumen, and career readiness 

• Support and enhance rotational programs, ensuring consistency, clarity, and strong developmental outcomes 

• Ensure alignment of early career programs with business priorities and workforce planning needs 

Program Execution & Operations 

• End-to-end execution of early career and internship programs, including onboarding, orientation, events, learning sessions, etc 

• Assist with program operations and logistics, including event planning, speaker coordination, vendor management, scheduling, & budgets 

• Serve as primary liaison between interns and managers, ensuring clear communication and support 

• Track program participants progress, engagement, and performance 

• Prepare and deliver presentations, program updates, and data-driven insights 

• Partnering with OD & Learning to ensure early career hires receive the right skill development and building tools and resources to strengthen coaching and performance management 

Engagement, Facilitation, and Communications 

• Partner with marketing to build a compelling early career program brand, promotional strategy, and on campus presence. 

• Ensure consistent and effective communications with interns, early career hires, managers, speakers, and business leaders 

• Lead and facilitate live sessions, workshops, and events 

• Serve as an engaging and motivational presenter who can connect with a diverse early career audience 

• Create a high-energy, inclusive environment that fosters belonging, growth, learning, connection and development 

Required:

• Minimum 5+ years of program management experience in early career, internship, university relations, or related talent programs 

• Proven experience designing and executing onboarding, learning programs, or large scale events 

• Strong program management skills, including planning, execution, stakeholder management, and measurement 

• Experience working cross-functionally with recruiting, learning, communications, and business leaders 

• Comfort with public speaking, facilitation, and presenting to large groups and executives 

• Willingness and flexibility to travel as needed 

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 [email protected] 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 02/16/2026 (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 location; (5) shift; (6) internal and external equity; and (7) business and organizational needs.
• The salary range is what we believe to be the range of possible compensation for this role at the time of this posting.  We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and this range is only applicable for jobs to be performed in California, Colorado, New York or remote jobs that can be performed in California, Colorado and New York.  This range may be modified in the future.
• If your position is non-exempt, you are eligible for overtime pay pursuant to company policy and applicable laws.  You may also be eligible for shift differential pay, depending on the shift to which you are assigned.

• You will be eligible to be considered for bonuses under either Western Digital’s Short Term Incentive Plan (“STI Plan”) or the Sales Incentive Plan (“SIP”) which provides incentive awards based on Company and individual performance, depending on your role and your performance. You may be eligible to participate in our annual Long-Term Incentive (LTI) program, which consists of restricted stock units (RSUs) or cash equivalents, pursuant to the terms of the LTI plan. Please note that not all roles are eligible to participate in the LTI program, and not all roles are eligible for equity under the LTI plan. RSU awards are also available to eligible new hires, subject to Western Digital’s Standard Terms and Conditions for Restricted Stock Unit Awards.

• We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid vacation time; paid sick leave; medical/dental/vision insurance; life, accident and disability insurance; tax-advantaged flexible spending and health savings accounts; employee assistance program; other voluntary benefit programs such as supplemental life and AD&D, legal plan, pet insurance, critical illness, accident and hospital indemnity; tuition reimbursement; transit; the Applause Program; employee stock purchase plan; and the Western Digital Savings 401(k) Plan.
• Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole discretion unless and until paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole discretion, consistent with the law.

Notice To Candidates: Please be aware that Western Digital and its subsidiaries will never request payment as a condition for applying for a position or receiving an offer of employment. Should you encounter any such requests, please report it immediately to Western Digital Ethics Helpline or email [email protected].