Principal Software Engineer (Product Engineering)

Join Dropbox as a Principal Software Engineer, where you will tackle company-critical technical problems with a multi-year impact. You will define the long-term technical direction for customer-facing experiences, lead the responsible introduction and adoption of AI, and influence roadmaps across organizations. This role requires deep technical expertise, experience in building consumer-facing products at scale, and the ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly.

• Définir la direction technique à long terme pour les expériences client, en identifiant où l'IA améliore la valeur client.
• Diriger l'introduction responsable et l'adoption de l'IA dans les capacités du produit et les flux de travail d'ingénierie.
• Influencer et aligner les feuilles de route à travers les organisations, en résolvant les goulets d'étranglement structurels.

• Demonstrated success operating at a Principal level, owning company critical technical problems and influencing long term technical direction
• Experience defining and scaling company wide platforms or architectural standards that are adopted across multiple organizations
• Broad and deep technical expertise across multiple domains, including several of frontend, mobile, search, databases, storage systems, concurrency, and distributed systems
• 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
• Strong experience building consumer facing products at scale, with a deep understanding of user experience, performance, reliability, and operational excellence
• Experience operating in highly distributed, virtual first engineering organizations at global scale
• Together, these behaviors help build a workforce where technology amplifies human judgment, creativity, and impact
• AI fluency is a core part of how we work and grow. It’s not about being an expert—it’s about using these tools thoughtfully and effectively to improve your work and support others
• Practical experience applying modern ML, LLM based APIs, and agentic frameworks in production systems, with sound judgment around quality, cost, and risk
• Ownership: You use AI responsibly by protecting data, applying sound judgment, and taking accountability for the quality and accuracy of your work
• Learning: You stay current on emerging AI tools and trends, continuously build your skills, and share what you learn with others
• We look for four key behaviors in candidates:
• Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly and persuasively to senior engineering, product, and executive audiences
• Advanced degree in Computer Science or a related technical field involving substantial software development, or equivalent industry experience demonstrating deep technical mastery
• 15+ years of experience designing, building, and evolving large scale software systems with sustained impact across multiple teams or organizations
• Proven track record of leading the introduction of new technologies such as AI or ML into core products or engineering workflows with durable impact