The Principal Software Engineer is a highly skilled expert responsible for shaping and executing the organization’s intelligence vision. This role integrates expertise in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Automation, Data Analytics and Visualization to deliver transformative customer, partner, and colleague experiences that drive revenue growth and enhance productivity.
The position defines the technical direction for intelligence initiatives, leading the design, development, and deployment of robust, scalable, and secure AI solutions while fostering innovation through emerging technologies.
A critical aspect of the role is providing partnership, mentorship and technical guidance, cultivating a culture of excellence and continuous learning. Through close cross-functional collaboration across teams and stakeholders, the role ensures technical efforts are strategically aligned and deliver measurable impact. Additionally, the position plays a central role in strategic problem-solving, addressing complex challenges in intelligence systems and data pipelines, and making informed architectural decisions that ensure long-term scalability and success.
Responsibilities- Define, drive, and communicate the technical vision for intelligence, AI, and data initiatives, ensuring alignment with CIT strategy, EPD goals, and broader organizational objectives.
- Take a holistic view of CIT systems and architecture to ensure they are scalable, reliable, secure, and maintainable over multiple years.
- Lead the design, development, and deployment of high performance AI systems, data pipelines, and intelligent services from conception through production.
- Make strategic architectural decisions to address complex AI, data, and platform challenges, balancing short term delivery with long term resilience and scalability
- Identify opportunities to simplify systems, reduce operational and security risk, and improve developer productivity.
- Contribute directly to prototyping, proof of concepts, and implementation of technical components when needed to validate strategy, de risk decisions, or accelerate progress.
- Architect, evolve, and scale AI, automation, and intelligence platforms that enable advanced analytics, personalization, search, and intelligent decision making.
- Drive innovation in intelligence models, distributed training, optimization techniques, and data engineering to maximize performance, quality, and business impact.
- Enhance search and discovery capabilities using intelligent algorithms, natural language processing, and modern data systems.
- Evaluate, select, and integrate emerging technologies in AI, ML, and automation to maintain a competitive and forward looking technical posture.
- Partner across engineering, product, design, infrastructure, and other stakeholders to ensure intelligence initiatives directly support strategic objectives.
- Translate technical capabilities and advancements into clear business outcomes that improve productivity, efficiency, and growth.
- Resolve conflicting requirements and priorities with sound technical judgment that favors long term organizational outcomes over local optimization.
- Advocate for intelligence driven solutions across the organization and influence company wide technical priorities.
- Act as a trusted technical advisor to senior engineering leadership, with IC6 scope extending to org wide and EPD level strategy.
- Provide mentorship and technical guidance to engineers and data scientists from mid level through senior, fostering continuous learning and technical excellence.
- Serve as a technical multiplier by raising the effectiveness of surrounding teams through design reviews, code reviews, architectural guidance, and pragmatic execution.
- Facilitate knowledge sharing across teams through documentation, design writeups, technical discussions, and mentorship programs.
- Act as a voice for engineers by synthesizing feedback, surfacing gaps and risks, and communicating them clearly to leadership.
- Contribute to multi year technical vision and roadmap planning, anticipating future scale, complexity, and organizational needs.
- Identify architectural, operational, and security risks early and mobilize proactive mitigation plans across org boundaries.
- Partner closely with managers, product leaders, and senior engineers to ensure ambitious initiatives remain feasible, sustainable, and well aligned.
- For IC6 scope, influence technical direction beyond CIT and partner directly with senior EPD leadership on company wide strategy.
- Lead and support critical, high impact initiatives by defining technical direction, clarifying requirements, gathering estimates, and ensuring delivery against milestones.
- Drive execution on complex projects with significant ambiguity or high cost of failure.
- Improve engineering effectiveness by championing best practices such as CI, automated testing, reliability reviews, and clear ownership models.
- Promote a bias toward action, thoughtful experimentation, and continuous learning.
- Model excellence in engineering craft, collaboration, accountability, and inclusive behavior.
- Lead by example in living Dropbox values, including integrity, ownership, simplicity, and inclusivity.
- Support hiring by interviewing, calibrating candidates against a high technical bar, and representing Dropbox authentically to candidates and partners.
- 12+ years of professional experience in software engineering, with depth in areas such as intelligent workflows, enterprise scale AI adoption, automation, or data engineering.
- Proven track record of leading large scale, multi team technical initiatives from conception to production, including solving ambiguous problems, setting technical vision, and driving impact without direct authority.
- Strong architectural judgment and systems thinking, with the ability to balance short term delivery with long term sustainability, scalability, and operational excellence.
- Demonstrated ability to influence across teams and disciplines through technical leadership, collaboration, and sound decision making rather than formal authority.
- Experience mentoring engineers and raising the technical bar of an organization through design reviews, code reviews, and technical guidance.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to clearly explain complex technical concepts, translate technical strategy to diverse audiences, and influence stakeholders at all levels.
- Strong coding ability in at least one language commonly used in AI and data systems such as Python, Java, Go, or Scala, with hands on experience building models, data pipelines, or scalable production services.
- Experience operating in platform, infrastructure, or internal tooling organizations, including leading or significantly influencing org wide technical initiatives.
- Proven ability to navigate ambiguity and competing priorities, drive clarity, and make sound technical and product tradeoffs in partnership with product managers.
- Experience collaborating cross functionally with product, design, infrastructure, and legal or privacy stakeholders to deliver AI powered or data intensive products responsibly.
- Familiarity with AI assisted development practices in large codebases, along with experience representing engineering externally through talks, blogs, or industry events when applicable.
US Zone 1
This role is not available in Zone 1
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What We Do
We're a global community of bold visionaries and resourceful doers who are shaping the future of Dropbox—and with it the future of work. Our Virtual First model combines the flexibility of a distributed workplace with the power of human connection, making space for both meaningful work and meaningful relationships. With our start-up mindset and enterprise-level opportunities, you can be who you are and grow into who you’re meant to be. Here, you can own your impact to make work more intuitive, joyful, and human—for you as a Dropboxer and for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. If you're ready to push boundaries—and yourself—Dropbox is ready for you.
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We believe people do their best work when empowered with autonomy and harmony, and we understand there’s no substitute for human connection. Our Virtual First model combines the flexibility of remote work with the power of in-person collaboration to create the best of both worlds: a distributed workplace, anchored in community.
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While remote work is the primary experience for our employees, we also prioritize opportunities for quarterly in-person collaboration knowing that connection is vital to a thriving workforce. We focus on how we work, not where we work.
