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Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

dropbox.github.io

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Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#121

Post by jameshart »

lucianbr wrote: post #67
anelson wrote: post #41

When reading BigTech career ladders like this one, I immediately fall into the trap of projecting myself onto the ladder, and getting upset when the level I've chosen for myself is described as something that sounds far removed from what I want to do. I must remind myself to frame this as how Dropbox describes the things that they value in each position. An L7 SWE is the most valuable SWE in Dropbox, as measured by t…

> instead should attend a lot of meetings, craft long-term visions, influence strategies, and probably cross-functionally synergize paradigms or something I never understand how this is supposed to happen. As an employee of a company, no matter the level, don't I need to do the tasks that are assigned to me by the higher level? Be they "write code" or "attend meetings" or "write an architecture document" or whatever?…

> an employee of a company, no matter the level, don't I need to do the tasks that are assigned to me by the higher level?

No, but ‘no matter the level’. Case in point, the IC6 and 7 levels in the Dropbox framework SWE track here both say:

> I transcend organizational boundaries and proactively identify the best way to leverage myself

At a certain level you are senior leadership and it becomes your job to figure out what the most useful thing to be working on is.

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#122

Post by igleria »

serial_dev wrote: post #27

It could be that I’m getting old, became a parent and working remotely from the middle of nowhere, but do I need to get to the next level? I really wouldn’t mind keeping my current salary, adjust it for inflation and I’m good. I don’t care about my title, I don’t want to manage people, I don’t want to work harder than I need to. I just want to pay off my mortgage, have some leftover money for vacations, have time for…

> adjust it for inflation and I’m good

If an employer offers this they are up there in employee retention for sure.

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#123

Post by zug_zug »

zerr wrote: post #10

In all of "career frameworks" I've seen, people who actually build things are labelled as "juniors" and "middles" while those who navigate office politics and ass-kissing are "seniors" and above.

Yeah that's a problem -- Here's my law for honest leveling - If somebody of a given level is incapable of doing something of the level below them, then your leveling system is broken (and they should be in a separate track).

Basically if your leveling system says "A company of all Staff+ would write no code and go out of business" then your leveling system is bs.

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#124

Post by yodsanklai »

rgblambda wrote: post #31
Hamuko wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have they all reached the same conclusion independently or are they just copying each other's homework?

Hired the same management consultants to write their career framework is my guess.

Could be. My guess is that in doubt, just copy what the other guy is doing. We see that all the time. Leetcode interviewing, return-to-office mandate, layoffs...

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#125

Post by kyawzazaw »

bdndndndbve wrote: post #76
sabellito wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the shallow cynicism. Isn't everything we do at a company in order to make the owner and shareholders richer?

There's nothing shallow about it. Companies don't make "levelling up" worthwhile unless you have your ego invested in your title in an unhealthy way. If you hang out at senior+/staff level you can just plug away until retirement.

i want to shorten that

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#126

Post by kyawzazaw »

silvestrov wrote: post #13
arnvald wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I remember correctly, Dropbox was one of the first big tech companies to publish its career framework openly, a lot of organizations (especially smaller ones) based their careers on the Dropbox’s one

Dropbox has 2,693 employees. 37signals has ~80. I can't see Dropbox having a product/sales that is ~30 times as complex. However, I can easily see an organization that has become overly political. Dropbox should be run as a small company and not run it as "big tech". What are all these people doing besides political games?

you are comparing the most unique company with Dropbox. bad start

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#127

Post by scarface_74 »

anelson wrote: post #120
scarface_74 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t matter how good you are as a developer, you can only have so much impact coding 40 hours a week. I wanted to move up both to increase my autonomy and my vision is much larger than the amount of work I can physically do with my own hands. As a 50 year old who has been doing this for awhile, I can and have: - spent time on zoom calls and flown out to customer’s sites to gather requirements and help close a s…

What you're describing is actually not that different from my own conception of what a senior principal SWE is. Simply stated, I would define that level as a very experienced, knowledgeable, competent SWE whose main value to the org isn't in KLOCs they personally write but as a force multiplier who sees around corners (but also writes their fair share of KLOCs). What turns me off about the version of an L7 SWE as des…

When I am managing very large cloud projects, I still have to deal with the client’s different departments priorities, fiefdoms, dealing with the operations side wanting everything locked down and the developers wanting the freedom to do what they want. It’s part of dealing with any large organization.

I got an offer to be a “staff architect” at the company that I acquired the startup I worked for before going to AWS. I would have been responsible for strategy across all of their acquisitions.

While the technical requirements didn’t worry me. I had never seen how a large product company worked at that level and didn’t have confidence I could pull it off from an organizational level. Before going to AWS I worked at small companies.

I did know the expectations in consulting. But in all large organizations you have to deal with that. It’s the nature of the beast.

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#128

Post by brightball »

silvestrov wrote: post #69
brightball wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sums up the original HN post where several people made fun of Dropbox. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 They’ve done many acquisitions to expand functionality, tons of integrations, APIs, search and they do a very good job when they integrate those acquisitions too.

The first post says "this shouldn't be a product at all". I'm not saying that. I'm saying that it should be a small focused company like FastMail or 37signals.

That’s how they started but it turns out that good syncing storage has a lot of potential integration points to create a more complete product.

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#129

Post by RadiozRadioz »

tikkabhuna wrote: post #40
serial_dev wrote: post #27

It could be that I’m getting old, became a parent and working remotely from the middle of nowhere, but do I need to get to the next level? I really wouldn’t mind keeping my current salary, adjust it for inflation and I’m good. I don’t care about my title, I don’t want to manage people, I don’t want to work harder than I need to. I just want to pay off my mortgage, have some leftover money for vacations, have time for…

I'm in the UK and since buying a house, I really feel no need to keep going higher. Property pricing in the UK is extremely damaging. If I found a job at a higher level that I thought I'd really enjoy and that I'd be good at, I'll be interested, but otherwise I'm content.

In the UK, home ownership is the great differentiator. In my experience, it is much more extreme than in other places.

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#130

Post by insaneisnotfree »

serial_dev wrote: post #27

It could be that I’m getting old, became a parent and working remotely from the middle of nowhere, but do I need to get to the next level? I really wouldn’t mind keeping my current salary, adjust it for inflation and I’m good. I don’t care about my title, I don’t want to manage people, I don’t want to work harder than I need to. I just want to pay off my mortgage, have some leftover money for vacations, have time for…

Totally agree. Working as an employee you won't ever get the money they get as directors and even as owners
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