Principal Software Engineer, Developer Productivity

Role Description

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.

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.

This is a career-defining opportunity to reimagine how software gets built at scale-and bring the promise of AI to everyday developer tasks.
Responsibilities

• Define the long-term architecture for Dropbox's developer productivity platform, including a unified internal developer portal ("Dropbox Console"), default workflows, and intelligent agents.
• Own platform-wide architectural patterns that streamline the entire SDLC: from local dev and CI to testing, debugging, and deployment.
• Build abstractions and systems that scale across monorepo, multi-platform (desktop/web/mobile), and hybrid cloud/on-prem environments.
• Lead the design and implementation of agentic workflows for core developer tasks-code reviews, test generation, flaky test triage, documentation, migrations, etc.
• Design systems that embed safe and assistive AI directly into development surfaces and tools, enabling faster iteration while preserving quality and auditability.
• Define best practices for integrating LLMs into engineering workflows, including supervision checkpoints, rollback strategies, and metrics.
• Partner with infrastructure, product, and engineering teams to identify bottlenecks and define metrics that matter for business outcomes.
• Drive migration from fragmented tools and tribal workflows to a unified platform that enables flow-state for developers.
• Set and enforce standards for quality, safety, and reliability of automation and AI workflows.
• Serve as a technical multiplier, mentoring teams across Dropbox and raising the bar on system design, platform thinking, and developer empathy.
• Collaborate deeply with PMs, DX researchers, SREs, and leadership to align priorities and deliver developer delight.
• Represent Dropbox in the external platform and AI productivity communities through talks, papers, and open-source contributions where appropriate.

Requirements

• 12+ years of engineering experience with a deep background in distributed systems, internal developer platforms, or DevProd infrastructure.
• Deep understanding of monorepos, complex CI/CD setups, local development, multi-platform development, and developer journey mapping.
• Demonstrated experience building large-scale platforms with high reliability, composability, and extensibility.
• Passionate about AI, with hands-on experience (or deep exposure) to integrating LLMs, RAG systems, or intelligent assistants into engineering workflows.
• Strong product sense and empathy for developer pain-capable of translating data and feedback into high-leverage solutions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading or contributing to AI developer tooling, or developer experience
• Proven success operating as a principal+ level engineer across large orgs

Compensation

US Zone 1

$284,800-$385,200 USD

US Zone 2

$256,300-$346,700 USD

US Zone 3

$227,800-$308,200 USD