Staff Backend Product Software Engineer, Core Intelligence & Media
Reclaim.ai
PLEASE READ: Zones are based on your zip code. If you’re within 100 miles of a listed metro area (straight-line radius), you’re included in that Zone. For this role, we are hiring in Zones 2 and 3. Check your Zone here before applying.
Role Description
As a Staff Engineer at Dropbox, you’ll take on some of the company’s most complex and ambiguous challenges, operating at the intersection of technology, product, and business impact. You’ll help define technical direction for customer-facing experiences used by millions, turning evolving context into clear, durable roadmaps that shape how Dropbox builds and scales.
Your influence will extend beyond any single team, driving architectural decisions, execution quality, and cross-org alignment. You’ll bring clarity where there is uncertainty and raise the bar for engineering excellence through hands-on leadership and thoughtful collaboration.
In return, you’ll gain meaningful exposure to senior leadership, shape foundational systems that unlock future product capabilities, and grow into an org-level technical strategist—helping advance Dropbox’s mission to create a more enlightened way of working.
Our Engineering Career Framework is viewable by anyone outside the company and describes what’s expected for our engineers at each of our career levels. Check out our blog post on this topic and more here.
Responsibilities
- Lead the technical delivery of a team of 15 to 20 engineers to deliver high-impact customer and business outcomes.
- Shape technical direction and partner with Product Management as the DRI for critical company-wide objectives.
- Own massive, ambiguous technical and product problems that create company-wide opportunity.
- Be a prolific, hands-on coder who owns and implements the most critical, complex, and foundational components of the system.
- Influence roadmaps across orgs, breaking silos and steering decisions that change how Dropbox builds.
- Architect foundational systems that enable new product capabilities and operate reliably at the scale of hundreds of millions of users.
- Demonstrate senior technical leadership and maintain high engineering standards in a virtual-first environment.
Requirements
- BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science or a related technical field involving coding (e.g., physics or mathematics) or equivalent technical experience.
- 12+ years of experience as a software engineer.
- Must have worked in a consumer user-facing team (versus a platform team, a developer-facing API-based product, etc).
- Must have a strong mix of skills and depth across multiple areas, including expertise in three or more of search, media systems engineering, performance engineering, modern ML and LLM-based APIs and agentic frameworks.
Preferred Qualifications
- Has significant experience in use of AI tools for technical design, prototyping, as well as coding for production use cases.
Compensation
US Zone 1
This role is not available in Zone 1
The range(s) listed above is the expected annual salary/OTE (On-Target Earnings) for this role, subject to change.
Please note, OTE are for sales roles only.
Salary/OTE is just one component of Dropbox’s total rewards package. All regular employees are also eligible for the corporate bonus program or a sales incentive (target included in OTE) as well as stock in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs).
Dropbox takes a number of factors into account when determining individual starting pay, including job and level they are hired into, location/metropolitan area, skillset, and peer compensation. We target most new hire offers between the minimum up to the middle of the range.
Dropbox uses the zip code of an employee’s remote work location to determine which metropolitan pay range we use. Current US Zone locations are as follows:
• US Zone 1: San Francisco metro, New York City metro, or Seattle metro
• US Zone 2: California (outside SF metro), Colorado, Connecticut (outside NYC metro), Delaware, Illinois (Chicago metro), Indiana (Chicago metro), Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan (Chicago metro), New Hampshire, New Jersey (outside NYC metro), New York (outside NYC metro), Oregon, Pennsylvania (D.C. metro), Pennsylvania (outside NYC or DC metro), Texas (Austin metro) Virginia (DC metro), Washington (outside Seattle metro), Washington DC metro, West Virginia (DC metro), Wisconsin (Chicago metro)
• US Zone 3: All other US locations
Company Description
Dropbox isn’t just a workplace—it’s a living lab for more enlightened ways of working. We're a global community of bold visionaries and resourceful doers who are shaping the future of Dropbox—and with it the future of work. Our Virtual First model combines the autonomy of a distributed workplace with the power of human connection, making space for both meaningful work and meaningful relationships. With our start-up mindset and enterprise-level opportunities, you can be who you are and grow into who you’re meant to be. Here, you can own your impact to make work more intuitive, joyful, and human—for you as a Dropboxer and for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. If you're ready to push boundaries—and yourself— Dropbox is ready for you.
Team Description
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.
Benefits
Dropbox is committed to investing in the holistic health and wellbeing of all Dropboxers and their families. Our benefits and perks programs include, but are not limited to:
- Competitive medical, dental, and vision coverage
- 401(k) plan with a generous company match and immediate vesting
- Flexible PTO/Paid Time Off, paid holidays, Volunteer Time Off, and more, allowing you time to unplug, unwind, and refresh
- Income Protection Plans: Life and disability insurance
- Business Travel Protection: Travel medical and accident insurance
- Perks Allowance to be used on what matters most to you, whether that’s wellness, learning and development, food and groceries, and much more
- Parental benefits including: Parental Leave, Child and Adult Care, Day Care FSA, Fertility Benefits, Adoption and Surrogacy Support, and Lactation Support
- Access to over 10,000 global co-working spaces through Gable.to, making it easy to book flexible workspaces for collaboration or individual work
- Quarterly Cell phone and internet allowance
- Mental health and wellness benefits
- Disability and neurodivergence support benefits
Additional benefit details are available upon request.
Dropbox supports responsible use of AI for preparation, but misrepresentation of skills or experience is not permitted. See our AI philosophy.