Role Description

As a Staff Software Engineer at Dropbox, you will be the singular technical owner of application performance across the Core org, which includes every consumer-facing surface: web, iOS, Android, and desktop. Your mandate is to make Dropbox feel fast on every surface used by customers. You will operate at the intersection of measurement, engineering, and product impact, owning ambiguous problems that span the entire stack and translate directly into business outcomes for hundreds of millions of users.

Responsibilities

• Drive performance improvement on the Dropbox web application by profiling React surfaces, producing flame graphs and heat maps, identifying high-impact opportunities, and shipping measurable improvements.
• Lead the performance initiative across iOS, Android, and desktop by coordinating with internal platform experts who own those clients—setting strategy, defining measurement standards, and driving execution.
• Take performance improvements end-to-end: from measurement to root-cause analysis to shipped code changes to validation in production telemetry.
• Build and own measurement, instrumentation, and regression-detection systems used by engineering teams across Core.
• Write production code regularly—primarily JavaScript and React on the web, with backend work in Python and Go.
• Set engineering standards for performance work across Core Engineering; mentor IC3 and IC4 engineers on profiling, measurement methodology, and performance-aware system design.
• Apply AI tooling to performance work; lead optimization of AI-assisted engineering workflows across Core.
• Influence cross-org roadmaps and architectural decisions by partnering with engineering leaders, PMs, and designers.

Requirements

• BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science or related technical field or equivalent experience.
• Minimum 12 years as a software engineer with 3+ years as a Senior.
• Hands-on experience driving measurable performance improvements in production web applications including profiling JavaScript/React surfaces using flame graphs, heat maps, traces, RUM data.
• Experience using AI tooling to accelerate performance work (LLMs and AI-assisted workflows).
• Experience optimizing AI-assisted engineering workflows for productivity improvement.
• Production experience with modern backend services in Python or Go supporting consumer-facing clients.
• Experience leading technical strategy on cross-cutting initiatives spanning multiple teams or surfaces.
• Experience working on consumer user-facing products with shipped changes impacting customer-visible metrics.
• Strong written/verbal communication skills; ability to influence roadmaps beyond direct reporting line.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience profiling/improving native iOS apps (Swift) including startup time, scroll performance, memory behavior.
• Experience profiling/improving native Android apps (Kotlin) including startup time, scroll performance, memory behavior.
• Experience profiling/improving desktop client apps including startup IPC resource usage.
• Experience building/owning performance regression-detection systems integrated into CI/CD.
• Experience with RUM telemetry pipelines and statistically rigorous comparison of performance data.
• Track record mentoring senior engineers and raising technical bar.

Compensation

US Zone 1: $248200—$335800 USD US Zone 2: $223400—$302200 USD US Zone 3: $198600—$268600 USD

Additional Information

Dropbox is a Virtual First company open to hiring candidates in all authorized locations. The role requires travel to offsites/team gatherings (~5–10% annually). The company emphasizes AI fluency as a core part of work culture.