Dropbox is a Virtual First company. For this role, we are hiring in Zones 2 and 3. Please refer to our Compensation section below to see what neighborhoods fall under each Zone.
Role Description
As a Senior Software Engineer on the Storage team, you will help design, build, and operate Dropbox’s large-scale storage systems that provide high durability and scalability for millions of users across all of Dropbox products. The Storage team owns the distributed storage infrastructure at the heart of Dropbox, systems responsible for storing exabytes of user data across multiple data centers worldwide.
You’ll collaborate with experienced engineers across infrastructure and product teams to improve reliability, optimize performance, and evolve the architecture of Dropbox’s storage layer. This role offers deep exposure to distributed systems and storage challenges such as replication, erasure coding, consistency tradeoffs, and performance tuning at massive scale.
It’s an ideal opportunity for engineers who love building resilient infrastructure, learning from complex production systems, and growing into technical leadership. You’ll gain hands-on experience operating mission-critical services, influence architectural decisions, and directly improve how Dropbox keeps user data safe, durable, and available.
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
- Design, implement, and maintain large-scale distributed storage systems that ensure data durability, availability, and performance.
- Collaborate with peers to evolve the architecture of Dropbox’s core storage infrastructure for improved scalability and efficiency.
- Contribute to the design of replication, erasure coding, and system lifecycle management systems that balance cost, reliability, and performance.
- Write high-quality, performant, and maintainable code in Go and Rust.
- Participate in the on-call rotation, gaining firsthand experience operating Dropbox’s production storage systems
- Investigate and resolve complex production issues, performing root cause analysis and driving continuous reliability improvements.
- Partner with cross-functional teams (Networking, Hardware, Capacity Planning) to deliver end-to-end reliable and cost-efficient storage solutions
- Take ownership of scoped projects and demonstrate growth toward leading larger, cross-team technical initiatives.
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. Applicants are encouraged to ask for more details of the rotations to which the applicant is applying.
Requirements
- 9+ years of strong understanding of distributed systems principles, including replication, consistency, and fault tolerance.
- Experience developing and debugging production services in C++, Go, or Rust.
- Familiarity with distributed storage systems, file systems, or data infrastructure at scale.
- Demonstrated ability to write efficient, reliable, and maintainable code in mission-critical environments.
- Experience troubleshooting complex systems and participating in on-call or operational rotations.
- Solid communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work across infrastructure and product teams.
- Eagerness to learn, grow, and contribute to multi-year infrastructure evolution initiatives.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience building and operating large-scale object storage or distributed storage systems (e.g. S3, Ceph, GFS/Colossus).
- Deep interest in systems performance, profiling, and low-level optimization.
- Familiarity with replication protocols, erasure coding, and data placement algorithms.
- Experience with production monitoring, observability, and incident response workflows.
- Contributions to infrastructure projects, open-source systems, or developer tooling that improved reliability and performance.
Durable Skills
AI fluency means using these tools to amplify human judgment, not replace it. We believe people with these skills will thrive as work and technology continue to evolve:
- Awareness: Understand yourself and others.
- Judgment: Evaluate information and make decisions in complex situations.
- Adaptability: Learn, adjust, and stay effective through change.
- Connection: Communicate, collaborate, and build trust.
To learn more about why these skills matter and what the data shows about thriving through change, read this blog post from our Chief People Officer, Melanie Rosenwasser.
Compensation
US Zone 1
This role is not available in Zone 1
US Zone 2
$202,700—$274,300 USD
US Zone 3
$180,200—$243,800 USD
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 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 designing a more enlightened way of working. We’re a global community of bold visionaries and resourceful doers shaping the future of Dropbox and, in turn, the future of work. Our Virtual First model combines the autonomy of a distributed workplace with the power of human connection, creating space for meaningful work and lasting relationships. With a startup mindset and enterprise-level opportunities, we expect Dropbox employees to think critically, stay curious, and use modern tools, including AI, to improve how work gets done. Here, you can be who you are and grow into who you’re meant to be. You own your impact, helping make work more intuitive, joyful, and human for yourself and hundreds of millions of people worldwide. If you’re ready to push boundaries and challenge yourself, Dropbox is ready for you.
Team Description
The Dropbox Engineering Team develops the technology, platforms, and products that create more enlightened ways of working for hundreds of millions of people. Customers rely on Dropbox to manage, share, and collaborate on content seamlessly—our engineering makes that easier and more intuitive than ever before.Our platform features a robust systems software layer that stores and processes exabytes of data, and a suite of growing services that enhance core products like our sharing and sync engine. We’re also driving innovation with new offerings such as Dash, our AI-powered knowledge management engine. Our infrastructure spans high-performance servers and cutting-edge components across multiple data centers worldwide, ensuring reliability, speed, and scalability at a global scale. 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.
Virtual First
Dropbox’s Virtual First way of working is designed to help people do their best work with flexibility, autonomy, and connection. Day to day, teams work remotely with nonlinear schedules and core collaboration hours that support deep focus and individual working styles. We prioritize asynchronous communication to improve clarity, respect deep work time, and reduce unnecessary meetings. While remote work is the primary experience for our employees, we also prioritize intentional, in-person connection. We bring teams together through regular team gatherings, on-demand workspaces, and Dropbox Neighborhood events in order to strengthen team cohesion, foster creativity, and enhance momentum. Virtual First is built to provide the same access to opportunity, growth, and impact for everyone, regardless of location.
This role requires travel to offsites and various other team gatherings (approximately 5-10% of the year or 2-3 days per quarter). We provide advance notice when possible and encourage candidates to discuss any accommodation needs during the interview process.
AI Fluency
- Ownership: You use AI responsibly by protecting data, applying sound judgment, and taking accountability for the quality and accuracy of your work.
- Experimentation: You explore new AI capabilities and apply them to improve workflows within approved tools and practices.
- Leverage: You use AI to enhance thinking, improve efficiency, and increase your impact and your team’s.
- Learning: You stay current on emerging AI tools and trends, continuously build your skills, and share what you learn with others.
Dropbox is an equal opportunity employer. We are a welcoming place for everyone, and we do our best to make sure all people feel supported and connected at work.