Backend Engineer • Staff

Who you are

You have significant experience in backend engineering, particularly in leading teams to deliver high-impact customer and business outcomes. Your expertise spans multiple areas, including search, media systems engineering, and performance engineering. You are a prolific coder who enjoys tackling complex and ambiguous technical problems, and you have a strong understanding of how to shape technical direction in collaboration with product management.

You are comfortable working in a fast-paced environment and can bring clarity to uncertainty, raising the bar for engineering excellence through hands-on leadership. Your experience includes using AI tools for technical design and prototyping, as well as coding for production use cases. You thrive in collaborative settings and are eager to influence architectural decisions across the organization.

Desirable

Experience with modern ML and LLM-based APIs is a plus, as is familiarity with agentic frameworks. You have a track record of driving cross-organizational alignment and delivering on critical company-wide objectives. Your ability to communicate effectively with senior leadership will be key in this role, as you will help shape foundational systems that unlock future product capabilities.

What you'll do

As a Staff Backend Product Software Engineer at Dropbox, you will lead the technical delivery of a team of 15 to 20 engineers, ensuring that high-impact customer and business outcomes are achieved. You will shape the technical direction of projects and partner closely with product management as the Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) for critical objectives. Your role will involve owning massive, ambiguous technical and product problems that create significant opportunities for the company.

You will be responsible for implementing the most critical and complex components of the system, influencing architectural decisions, and ensuring execution quality. Your hands-on coding will be essential as you work on foundational components that support the broader product vision. You will also engage in thoughtful collaboration with various teams to drive alignment and ensure that engineering efforts are effectively integrated with product goals.

What we offer

At Dropbox, you will gain meaningful exposure to senior leadership and have the opportunity to grow into an org-level technical strategist. The company is committed to creating a more enlightened way of working, and your contributions will play a vital role in advancing this mission. The compensation for this role ranges from $204,900 to $277,200 CAD, reflecting the importance of the position and the expertise required.

You will be part of a culture that values innovation and collaboration, where your ideas and contributions will be recognized and rewarded. We encourage you to apply even if your experience doesn't match every requirement, as we believe diverse teams build better products.