<h2><span>Role Description</span></h2> <p>Dropbox is seeking a Principal Engineer to define the long-term technical vision and execution strategy for Developer Productivity. This role will serve as the architectural and strategic leader for building a modern, AI-augmented internal developer experience platform serving Dropbox engineers across our multi-product stack.</p> <p>In this high-impact, cross-cutting role, you’ll shape how development flows from idea to production—streamlining workflows, reducing friction, and introducing agentic workflows that enable faster, higher-quality software delivery. You’ll work across distributed systems, address the challenges of a complex monorepo, and introduce intelligent systems that empower developers through automation, guidance, and seamless tooling integration.</p> <p>This is a career-defining opportunity to reimagine how software gets built at scale—and bring the promise of AI to everyday developer tasks.</p> <h2><span>Responsibilities</span></h2> <ul> <li>Define the long-term architecture for Dropbox’s developer productivity platform, including a unified internal developer portal (“Dropbox Console”), default workflows, and intelligent agents.</li> <li>Own platform-wide architectural patterns that streamline the entire SDLC: from local dev and CI to testing, debugging, and deployment.</li> <li>Build abstractions and systems that scale across monorepo, multi-platform (desktop/web/mobile), and hybrid cloud/on-prem environments.</li> <li>Lead the design and implementation of agentic workflows for core developer tasks—code reviews, test generation, flaky test triage, documentation, migrations, etc.</li> <li>Design systems that embed safe and assistive AI directly into development surfaces and tools, enabling faster iteration while preserving quality and auditability.</li> <li>Define best practices for integrating LLMs into engineering workflows, including supervision checkpoints, rollback strategies, and metrics.</li> <li>Partner with infrastructure, product, and engineering teams to identify bottlenecks and define metrics that matter for business outcomes.</li> <li>Drive migration from fragmented tools and tribal workflows to a unified platform that enables flow-state for developers.</li> <li>Set and enforce standards for quality, safety, and reliability of automation and AI workflows.</li> <li>Serve as a technical multiplier, mentoring teams across Dropbox and raising the bar on system design, platform thinking, and developer empathy.</li> <li>Collaborate deeply with PMs, DX researchers, SREs, and leadership to align priorities and deliver developer delight.</li> <li>Represent Dropbox in the external platform and AI productivity communities through talks, papers, and open-source contributions where appropriate.</li> </ul> <h2><span>Requirements</span></h2> <ul> <li>12+ years of engineering experience with a deep background in distributed systems, internal developer platforms, or DevProd infrastructure.</li> <li>Deep understanding of monorepos, complex CI/CD setups, local development, multi-platform development, and developer journey mapping.</li> <li>Demonstrated experience building large-scale platforms with high reliability, composability, and extensibility.</li> <li>Passionate about AI, with hands-on experience (or deep exposure) to integrating LLMs, RAG systems, or intelligent assistants into engineering workflows.</li> <li>Strong product sense and empathy for developer pain—capable of translating data and feedback into high-leverage solutions.</li> </ul> <div> <h2>Preferred Qualifications</h2> <ul> <li>Experience leading or contributing to AI developer tooling, or developer experience</li> <li>Proven success operating as a principal+ level engineer across large orgs</li> </ul> <h2><span>Compensation</span></h2> </div><div><div><div>US Zone 1</div><div><span>$276,300</span><span>—</span><span>$373,800 USD</span></div></div><div><div>US Zone 2</div><div><span>$248,600</span><span>—</span><span>$336,400 USD</span></div></div><div><div>US Zone 3</div><div><span>$221,000</span><span>—</span><span>$299,000 USD</span></div></div></div>

Dropbox

Principal Software Engineer, Developer Productivity

Dropbox

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