Staff Infrastructure Software Engineer, Dropbox
Search Platform
$192.4-292.9k
Salary applicable to Zone 2 and 3 and varies by location. Offers corporate bonus program and stock in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs)
More information about location
Smart workspace company
Be an early applicant
Smart workspace company
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$192.4-292.9k
Salary applicable to Zone 2 and 3 and varies by location. Offers corporate bonus program and stock in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs)
More information about location
1001+ employees
Company mission
Dropbox's mission is to design a more enlightened way of working.
Role
Who you are
- 10+ years of professional software development experience as well as 5+ years of experience building and operating large-scale search platforms
- Expertise in search engine architecture, distributed indexing, retrieval models, and ranking optimization
- Proficiency in lexical search, vector search, embeddings-based retrieval, and hybrid search techniques
- Strong experience with Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, or custom search infrastructure
- Solid programming skills in Python, Go, C++, or Java, with distributed systems experience
- Familiarity with LLMs, AI-powered retrieval, and RAG pipelines is a plus
Desirable
- Capable of articulating, conceptualizing, and defining comprehensive strategies
- Exhibits a very high standard of technical judgement, innovation and execution to tackle open-ended problems that require difficult prioritization
- Proficiency in defining both objectives and the methodologies for achieving them
What the job involves
- The Dropbox Engineering Team builds the technology that creates more enlightened ways of working for hundreds of millions of people
- Every day, our platforms—including Dropbox Dash, Dropbox Sign, and our core sync engine—handle over a billion files for users worldwide, creating engineering challenges as great as the opportunity for impact
- Our software engineering team uses a range of technologies to solve interesting problems, including Python, React, Node
- Js, JavaScript, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, and Android development
- We think like a startup but build for an enterprise, exploring new possibilities that transform how people work
- If you're excited about turning complex technical challenges into intuitive solutions at scale, join our Engineering team
- Areas of work include Machine Learning Engineers, Infrastructure Engineer, Product SWE Frontend and Backend, Mobile Software Engineers (iOS and Android), Engineering Manager, Data Engineer, Software Development Engineer in Test, Security Engineering, Site Reliability Engineer, Technical Program Managers, Network Engineer, Datacenter Engineer, Technical Supply Chain Manager and more
- As a Tech Lead Search Infra Engineer on the Search Platform team, you will be instrumental in designing, building, and scaling a next-generation search and retrieval platform from scratch
- This platform will power Dropbox Dash, AI-driven search, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines, and AI agents, enabling intelligent, real-time information discovery and automation
- This role requires deep expertise in search infrastructure, indexing, retrieval models, ranking optimization, and distributed systems
- You will own the end-to-end development of search capabilities, including query execution, hybrid search (lexical, vector, and structured search), and real-time AI retrieval
- The search infrastructure you build will be mission-critical to Dropbox’s AI strategy
- It will power intelligent assistants, real-time knowledge retrieval, and automation, driving AI adoption and engagement across the company’s product ecosystem
- Architect and Build Search from the Ground Up – Design and implement a highly scalable, AI-powered search and retrieval platform to support both traditional search and RAG-powered AI workflows
- Unify Search & AI Retrieval – Develop a single, cohesive search system that integrates with AI agents, copilots, and automated workflows, enabling intelligent search experiences
- Optimize Indexing & Query Execution – Scale high-performance indexing pipelines to handle trillions of documents while optimizing for latency, cost-efficiency, and relevance
- Power AI Agents & RAG Pipelines – Build real-time retrieval infrastructure that enables AI assistants to dynamically fetch, synthesize, and generate insights from structured and unstructured data
- Enhance ML-Driven Ranking & Relevance – Implement hybrid retrieval models (keyword, semantic, and structured queries), and embeddings-based search for AI interactions
- Scale Search & Retrieval for AI – Ensure global scalability, and multi-language support, adapting search experiences for diverse user needs
- Many teams at Dropbox run Services with on-call rotations, which entails being available for calls during both core and non-core business hours
- If a team has an on-call rotation, all engineers on the team are expected to participate in the rotation as part of their employment
Our take
Dropbox started by helping people bring together their files in one central place. The contents of these folders are synchronised to Dropbox's servers along with other computers and devices where the user has installed Dropbox, keeping the same files up-to-date across all devices.
Nowadays, there are lots of competing companies in cloud storage, and some with better distribution (e.g. Google and Apple). This explains why Dropbox is making a big push to reinvent itself after a fairly disappointing run since its IPO in 2018. The new Dropbox turns folders into "Spaces", which are collaboration hubs for teams, complete with comment streams, artificial intelligence tools and integrations into services such as Slack.
The company continues to build out its offerings through acquisitions, such as that of Formswift, bolstering its end-to-end agreement workflow capabilities. Indeed, It's very clear that Dropbox is trying to make a big move from being just a storage company. This seems to be a necessary move given the competitive nature of the industry it is operating within.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
3% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Jan 2014
$350m
SERIES C
Oct 2011
$250m
SERIES B
Total funding: $607.3m
Company benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage
- We offer a generous company contribution toward individual medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage, including contributions toward dependent premiums
- Keep sharing and collaborating with friends and family even when you’re not at work with free Dropbox space for your whole crew
- Take the vacation you’ve always dreamed of with up to four consecutive weeks of paid time off
- Celebrate common holidays without your paycheck taking the hit with 11 company paid holidays
- Each Dropboxer has access to 32 hours of paid volunteer time off each year that they can use to support the causes close to their hearts
- We regularly offer panels and seminars featuring the best minds in tech, talent, diversity, and beyond that any Dropboxer can attend from the comfort of their home
- No two Dropboxers are the same, and their benefits shouldn’t be either. Our Perks allowance empowers employees to customize their benefits in line with what really matters to them
- Start building a successful 401K retirement plan with our dollar for dollar contribution match, up to $1,500 per quarter to a maximum of $6,000 per calendar year
Company HQ
Mission Bay, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Arash Ferdowsi
(CTO)Studied Computer Science at MIT before founding Dropbox straight out of university
Drew Houston
(CEO)Studied Computer Science at MIT before founding Dropbox straight out of university
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