Principal Software Engineer

• As a Principal Engineer at Dropbox, you will own company critical, loosely defined technical problems with multi year impact, operating at the intersection of technology, product, business strategy, and applied AI
• You will define long term technical direction for customer facing experiences used by millions, identifying where AI meaningfully improves customer value and translating evolving business context and industry advances into durable, multi area strategies and roadmaps that shape how Dropbox builds, scales, and innovates, while remaining hands on in software development where it provides the greatest leverage
• Your influence will span organizations, setting foundational architecture, driving execution standards, and aligning senior technical and product leaders across boundaries
• You will lead the responsible introduction and adoption of AI across product capabilities and engineering workflows, bring clarity to the most complex decisions, institutionalize engineering excellence, and contribute directly through critical design, prototyping, and code reviews
• In return, you will operate as a trusted technical partner to senior leadership, shape systems and platforms including AI powered foundations that define Dropbox’s future, and act as a company level technical strategist, advancing Dropbox’s mission to create a more enlightened way of working
• Own and drive technical outcomes across multiple teams and organizations, delivering company critical customer and business impact at scale
• Define long term technical strategy and partner with senior Product and Engineering leaders as the technical owner for the most important company objectives
• Tackle the most ambiguous and far reaching technical and product problems, shaping what the company builds as much as how it builds it
• Remain deeply hands on in software development, owning and implementing the most critical, complex, and foundational parts of the system where leverage is highest
• Influence and align roadmaps across organizations, resolving structural bottlenecks and changing how Dropbox builds and operates
• Architect and evolve foundational systems (this may involve both frontend and backend systems) and platforms that enable new product capabilities and operate reliably at the scale of hundreds of millions of users
• Model exceptional technical judgment and execution rigor, setting and sustaining high engineering standards across a distributed, virtual environment
• Drive AI adoption both to increase productivity and to produce AI based features

Benefits

• On-site fitness and meditation classes
• Commuter subsidies
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• We offer a generous company contribution toward individual medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage, including contributions toward dependent premiums
• 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
• 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

• Advanced degree in Computer Science or a related technical field involving substantial software development, or equivalent industry experience demonstrating deep technical mastery
• Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly and persuasively to senior engineering, product, and executive audiences
• Broad and deep technical expertise across multiple domains, including several of frontend, mobile, search, databases, storage systems, concurrency, and distributed systems
• Demonstrated success operating at a Principal level, owning company critical technical problems and influencing long term technical direction
• Strong experience building consumer facing products at scale, with a deep understanding of user experience, performance, reliability, and operational excellence
• 15+ years of experience designing, building, and evolving large scale software systems with sustained impact across multiple teams or organizations
• Practical experience applying modern ML, LLM based APIs, and agentic frameworks in production systems, with sound judgment around quality, cost, and risk
• AI fluency is a core part of how we work and grow. It’s not about being an expert—it’s about using these tools thoughtfully and effectively to improve your work and support others
• We look for four key behaviors in candidates:
• Proven track record of leading the introduction of new technologies such as AI or ML into core products or engineering workflows with durable impact
• Ownership: You use AI responsibly by protecting data, applying sound judgment, and taking accountability for the quality and accuracy of your work
• Learning: You stay current on emerging AI tools and trends, continuously build your skills, and share what you learn with others
• Together, these behaviors help build a workforce where technology amplifies human judgment, creativity, and impact
• Experience operating in highly distributed, virtual first engineering organizations at global scale
• Leverage: You use AI to enhance thinking, improve efficiency, and increase your impact and your team’s
• Experimentation: You explore new AI capabilities and apply them to improve workflows within approved tools and practices
• Experience defining and scaling company wide platforms or architectural standards that are adopted across multiple organizations

• Dropbox supports responsible use of AI for preparation, but misrepresentation of skills or experience is not permitted