Staff Full-Stack Software Engineer – Core Performance

Job Overview

This is a highly visible staff-level engineering role focused on making Dropbox faster and more responsive across every major customer surface. You will define the company’s performance discipline within Core Engineering, establish measurement standards, build regression-detection systems, and lead complex performance initiatives from investigation through production validation.

The role requires deep hands-on web performance expertise, full-stack engineering capability, technical leadership, and the ability to coordinate work across multiple teams and platform owners. You will write production code while also influencing engineering strategy, roadmaps, architecture, and performance practices across the organization.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead performance improvements across Dropbox’s web application, beginning with high-traffic React experiences.
• Profile JavaScript and React surfaces using flame graphs, heat maps, traces, telemetry, and real-user monitoring data.
• Identify high-value performance opportunities and deliver measurable production improvements.
• Own performance work from initial measurement and root-cause analysis through implementation, release, and production validation.
• Coordinate performance strategy across iOS, Android, and desktop teams in partnership with internal platform specialists.
• Build and maintain instrumentation, performance measurement, and regression-detection systems used throughout Core Engineering.
• Write production code in JavaScript and React, with backend contributions in Python and Go.
• Define engineering standards for performance-aware architecture, profiling, testing, and system design.
• Mentor senior individual contributors on performance analysis, measurement practices, and technical decision-making.
• Use AI tools to accelerate profiling, debugging, refactoring, and performance optimization work.
• Improve AI-assisted engineering workflows across the Core organization by defining effective tools, patterns, and guardrails.
• Influence cross-functional roadmaps and architectural decisions with engineering leaders, product managers, and designers.
• Help ensure performance is treated as a core product requirement across Dropbox’s customer-facing experiences.
• Participate in an on-call rotation when required by the assigned team.

Required Qualifications

• At least 144 months of professional software engineering experience.
• At least 36 months of experience operating at a senior software engineering level.
• Hands-on experience improving performance in production consumer-facing web applications.
• Advanced experience profiling JavaScript and React applications using flame graphs, heat maps, traces, and real-user monitoring data.
• Proven ability to identify root causes, implement fixes, and demonstrate measurable improvements in customer-visible metrics.
• Experience using generative AI and AI-assisted engineering tools for performance analysis, investigation, refactoring, or software delivery.
• Experience improving AI-assisted development workflows for other engineers, including tool selection, standards, guardrails, and productivity measurement.
• Production experience with modern backend services written in Python or Go.
• Experience leading technical strategy across multiple teams, platforms, or product surfaces.
• Ability to write technical design documents, define architecture, and drive complex initiatives to measurable outcomes.
• Experience working on consumer-facing products and shipping changes that improved user-visible performance.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to influence engineering decisions and roadmaps without relying on direct reporting authority.

Education

• BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science or a related technical field involving programming, such as mathematics or physics.
• Equivalent technical experience may be accepted in place of a formal degree.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience profiling and improving native iOS applications built with Swift.
• Experience optimizing startup time, scrolling performance, and memory behavior on iOS.
• Experience profiling and improving native Android applications built with Kotlin.
• Experience optimizing startup time, scrolling performance, and memory behavior on Android.
• Experience improving desktop application startup, interprocess communication, and resource usage.
• Experience building performance regression-detection systems integrated with CI/CD workflows.
• Knowledge of real-user monitoring pipelines, telemetry sampling, and statistically rigorous performance comparisons.
• Track record of mentoring senior engineers and improving technical standards across an engineering organization.

Technical Focus Areas

• JavaScript and React performance.
• Python and Go backend services.
• Application profiling and root-cause analysis.
• Flame graphs, heat maps, traces, and RUM telemetry.
• Performance instrumentation and regression detection.
• Web, iOS, Android, and desktop performance.
• CI/CD performance safeguards.
• AI-assisted engineering workflows.
• Cross-platform architecture.
• Consumer application performance.

Work Arrangement

• Full-time remote position within the United States.
• Dropbox operates as a Virtual First company.
• The role is open across authorized US locations.
• Compensation is determined partly by the employee’s remote work ZIP code.
• Regular collaboration is required across web, mobile, desktop, backend, product, design, and engineering leadership teams.
• Some engineering teams operate on-call rotations that include core and non-core business hours.

Compensation

Dropbox uses geographic compensation zones for US-based remote employees.

• US Zone 1: $248,200 to $335,800 per year.
• US Zone 2: $223,400 to $302,200 per year.
• US Zone 3: $198,600 to $268,600 per year.

Final starting compensation is based on factors including role level, location, skills, experience, and internal peer compensation. Dropbox states that most new-hire offers are targeted between the minimum and midpoint of the applicable range.

Eligible employees may also receive a corporate bonus and Restricted Stock Units as part of the total rewards package.