Staff Fullstack Software Engineer, Core Performance

Fully Remote

Job Description

Role Description

As a Staff Software Engineer at Dropbox, you'll be the singular technical owner of application performance across the Core org — the part of Dropbox that owns every consumer-facing surface: web, iOS, Android, and desktop. This is one of the company's most visible, cross-cutting technical challenges. Your mandate is to make Dropbox feel fast on every surface our customers use. You'll 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.

There is no existing performance team at Dropbox — you'll define the discipline. You'll start with the web, profiling our highest-traffic React surfaces, producing flame graphs and heat maps, identifying the most valuable opportunities, and driving fixes through to shipped, measured wins. The web is your initial focus and the surface where you'll be most hands-on. From there, you'll lead the performance initiative across iOS, Android, and desktop by partnering with the internal platform experts who own those clients — coordinating strategy, transferring measurement practices, and driving the work, rather than building everything yourself. You'll also work across the Python and Go backend services that all of these surfaces depend on, since perceived performance rarely lives in one layer.

Your influence will extend across Core Engineering. You'll define the measurement standards, regression-detection systems, and performance practices that other engineers rely on. You'll also be expected to use AI fluently in your own engineering work and to lead the optimization of AI-assisted workflows across Core, raising the productivity of every engineer around you. You'll bring clarity where there is uncertainty, raise the bar for engineering excellence through hands-on leadership, and shape how Dropbox thinks about performance for years to come.
In return, you'll gain meaningful exposure to senior leadership, build foundational systems that unlock future product capabilities, and grow into an org-level technical strategist — helping advance Dropbox's mission to create a more enlightened way of working.

Our Engineering Career Framework is viewable by anyone outside the company and describes what’s expected for our engineers at each of our career levels. Check out our blog post on this topic and more here.

Responsibilities

Drive performance improvement on the Dropbox web application as the first focus of the role — profiling React surfaces, producing flame graphs and heat maps, identifying the highest-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 rather than implementing every fix personally
Take performance improvements end-to-end: from measurement, to root-cause analysis, to shipped code changes, to validation in production telemetry
Build and own the measurement, instrumentation, and regression-detection systems that engineering teams across Core depend on to ship performant code
Write production code regularly — primarily JavaScript and React on the web, with backend work in Python and Go on the services those surfaces depend on
Set engineering standards for performance work across Core Engineering, and mentor IC3 and IC4 engineers on profiling, measurement methodology, and performance-aware system design
Apply AI tooling to performance work and lead the optimization of AI-assisted engineering workflows across Core, raising engineering throughput and shaping how Dropbox engineers use AI to ship better software faster
Influence cross-org roadmaps and architectural decisions, partnering with engineering leaders, PMs, and designers to ensure performance is treated as a first-class product attribute

Many teams at Dropbox run Services with on-call rotations, which entails being available for calls during both core and non-core business hours. If a team has an on-call rotation, all engineers on the team are expected to participate in the rotation as part of their employment. Applicants are encouraged to ask for more details of the rotations to which the applicant is applying.

Requirements

BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science or a related technical field involving coding (e.g., physics or mathematics) or equivalent technical experience
Minimum of 12 years of experience as a software engineer with 3+ years serving as a Senior.
Demonstrated, hands-on experience driving measurable performance improvements in production web applications — including profiling JavaScript and React surfaces, identifying root causes through flame graphs, heat maps, traces, and RUM data, and shipping the fixes that moved the metric
Demonstrated experience using AI tooling to accelerate performance work — applying LLMs and AI-assisted workflows to profiling analysis, root-cause investigation, refactoring, or shipping performance fixes
Experience optimizing AI-assisted engineering workflows to improve the productivity of other engineers — selecting tools, defining patterns and guardrails, and measuring the impact on engineering throughput
Production experience with modern backend services in Python or Go that support consumer-facing client surfaces
Experience leading technical strategy on cross-cutting initiatives spanning multiple teams or surfaces, including writing design docs, defining architecture, and driving execution to measurable outcomes
Has worked on a consumer user-facing product (versus a platform team or developer-facing API-based product), and shipped changes that moved customer-visible metrics
Strong written and verbal communication skills, with a track record of influencing roadmaps and decisions outside their direct reporting line — including leading initiatives that depend on coordinating with platform owners they don't directly manage

Preferred Qualifications

Experience profiling and improving native iOS applications (Swift), including startup time, scroll performance, and memory behavior
Experience profiling and improving native Android applications (Kotlin), including startup time, scroll performance, and memory behavior
Experience profiling and improving desktop client applications, including startup, IPC, and resource usage
Experience building or owning performance regression-detection systems integrated into CI/CD
Experience with RUM telemetry pipelines, sampling strategy, and statistically rigorous comparison of performance data
Track record of mentoring senior engineers (Senior and above) and raising the technical bar across an engineering organization

Compensation

US Zone 1

$248,200—$335,800 USD

US Zone 2

$223,400—$302,200 USD

US Zone 3

$198,600—$268,600 USD

Benefits & Perks

Health & Wellness

Health Insurance

Dropbox provides medical coverage through Anthem (PPO or HSA) or Kaiser HMO (CA and HI only) for employees and their families.

Dental Insurance

Dental coverage is provided through Guardian Dental for employees and dependents.

Vision Insurance

Vision coverage through Guardian VSP includes a $250 annual allowance for frames or lenses.

Mental Health Benefits

Mental health support is provided through Modern Health, which offers coaching and therapy for employees.

Life Insurance

Life insurance is provided at 2x base salary up to $1M, with AD&D coverage included.

Disability Insurance

Short-term disability covers 60% of pay up to $2,500 per week, and long-term disability covers 60% up to $15,000 per month.

Flexible Spending Account (FSA)

Pre-tax flexible spending accounts are available for healthcare and dependent care expenses.

Health Savings Account (HSA)

When enrolled in the HSA medical plan, Dropbox contributes $233 per month ($2,796 per year) to the employee HSA.

Pet Insurance

Dropbox offers pet insurance coverage for employee pets.

Gender Affirming Care

Health coverage includes transgender healthcare benefits supporting gender-affirming treatments.

Fitness Stipend

Dropbox provides a $100 per month gym and wellness reimbursement plus full free access to the Peloton Corporate Wellness Program.

Wellness Programs

A quarterly perks allowance of up to $5,000-$7,000 per year covers wellness, caregiver support, productivity, ergonomics, learning, and groceries.

Employee Assistance Program

Dropbox provides an Employee Assistance Program with confidential counseling and support resources.

Financial

401(k) / Retirement Plan

Dropbox offers a 401(k) retirement plan including a Mega Backdoor Roth feature allowing up to $23,000 per year in additional after-tax contributions ($30,500/yr for employees 50+).

401(k) Match

Dropbox provides a 100% match on employee 401(k) contributions up to $6,000 per year, disbursed quarterly ($1,500/qtr) with a year-end true-up.

Equity / RSUs

All regular employees receive Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) that vest over 4 years, quarterly at 6.25% per quarter, with no traditional 1-year cliff.

Work-Life Balance

Charity Matching

Dropbox provides a 100% donation match for employee charitable giving up to $2,000 per year.

Employee Product Discount

Employees receive exclusive discounts with partnered companies and on Dropbox products.

Employee Resource Groups

Dropbox supports Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and a Dropbox Neighborhood community program for connection across the global workforce.

Employee Recognition Awards

Professional Growth

Learning & Development Budget

Dropbox provides a continuing education stipend, tuition reimbursement, online course subscriptions, Dropbox-sponsored tech talks, and Lunch and Learns; learning is also an eligible category under the quarterly perks allowance.

Mentorship Program

Dropbox runs a structured mentorship program for employees plus apprenticeship programs.

Defined Career Pathways

Dropbox publishes an Engineering Career Framework that defines expectations at each level and offers customized development tracks plus a promote-from-within practice.

Cookie Preferences

Staff Fullstack Software Engineer, Core Performance

Job Description

Role Description

Responsibilities

Requirements

Preferred Qualifications

Compensation

Compensation

Benefits & Perks

Health & Wellness

Financial

Work-Life Balance

Professional Growth

Tech Stack

JavaScript & Libraries

Frameworks

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