Principal Software Engineer – Corporate AI

Role Overview

• 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.

Requirements

• 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.

Benefits

• Health insurance
• Retirement plans
• Paid time off
• Flexible work arrangements
• Professional development
• Bonuses
• Stock options