Staff Product Backend Software Engineer, Dropbox
Core Sync
$192.4-325.5k
Salary is dependent on location. Eligible for the corporate bonus program as well as stock in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs)
Smart workspace company
Be an early applicant
Smart workspace company
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$192.4-325.5k
Salary is dependent on location. Eligible for the corporate bonus program as well as stock in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs)
1001+ employees
Company mission
Dropbox's mission is to design a more enlightened way of working.
Role
Who you are
- This role offers the opportunity for substantial technical ownership, senior leadership exposure, and the chance to leave a lasting mark on Dropbox’s core product experience
- 12+ years of software engineering experience with proven success in large-scale, user-facing systems
- BS in Computer Science or related technical field involving coding (e.g., mathematics, physics), or equivalent technical experience
- Demonstrated ability to design and ship technically complex products used at scale
- Deep expertise in at least one systems-level area (e.g., sync, distributed systems, OS internals, file systems)
- Strong communication and collaboration skills, with experience influencing across multiple teams and functions
- Comfortable balancing short-term delivery with long-term strategic investments
- Willingness to participate in on-call rotations where required
Desirable
- Advanced proficiency in Rust or C++, with strong debugging and performance optimization skills
- Familiarity with operating system internals, compilers, databases, or distributed storage systems
- Knowledge of Python and/or Go a plus
- Track record of setting technical direction across teams and driving adoption of new technologies
- Experience building developer platforms or infrastructure that accelerates product delivery
What the job involves
- As a Staff Engineer focused on Dropbox Sync, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the reliability, scalability, and future direction of one of Dropbox’s most critical systems
- You will partner with Product Managers, Engineering Managers, and other senior technical leaders to deliver platform improvements that directly impact customers and enable future innovation
- You’ll balance short-term execution with long-term architectural investments, ensuring Dropbox’s sync experience continues to set the standard for simplicity and trust
- As a Staff Engineer, you’ll thrive if you love tackling ambiguity, operating with autonomy, and driving technical strategy across teams
- Architect and deliver high-impact technical solutions that scale to millions of daily active users
- Shape technical direction by evaluating tradeoffs between speed, quality, and long-term maintainability across projects
- Partner cross-functionally with Product, Design, and Engineering peers to align on priorities and execute against critical business objectives
- Lead technical initiatives that modernize core sync systems, improve performance, and reduce customer-reported issues
- Mentor and elevate other engineers through design reviews, code reviews, and sharing best practices
- Influence org-wide engineering standards by advocating for high-quality systems design, operational excellence, and pragmatic decision-making
- Contribute to culture by participating in hiring, onboarding, and company-wide technical forums
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: $607.4m
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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