Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

dropbox.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 136 posts

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#71

Post by UncleMeat »

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?…

Usually the levels don't say "you cannot do X until you are level Y" but instead are "if you are level Y you must be doing X".

This means that if you want to be promoted you go to your boss and say "hey, I want to work towards the next level." They then find opportunities for you to attempt the various things required for the next level and if you succeed you can be promoted.

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#73

Post by scarface_74 »

0xEF wrote: post #65
LittleTimothy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These frameworks serve 3 purposes. The first purpose is to have something concrete to point at so your employees don't sue you over unfair practices - they create a paper trail for management to operate and build evidence that what they are doing follows a meritocratic process (whether that's true or not is irrelevant, it's purely a legal concern). The second purpose is to motivate employees who want progression by s…

I'm also in the same boat as both of you, but I'm not sure I agree with the idea that I need to do a bunch of extra work to prove some nebulous concept like "impact at the next level" or whatever buzzwoo we want to say in place of that. If the manager wants to develop my talent, then they need to get off their over-priced rear ends and do so. I feel like making everyone at the lower levels shoulder all of the account…

> If the manager wants to develop my talent, then they need to get off their over-priced rear ends and do so.

You are responsible for your own career. When (hypothetical) you get ready to look for another job, do you really want to only be able to say that you were a ticket taker or do you want to be able to say you led initiatives?

Even if you don’t really care about getting ahead, you still have to be able to stand out from other applicants

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#74

Post by chris222 »

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…

Dropbox does have a terminal level which I think was IC4 when I was there.

On the other hand they have recently done a layoff round every 1-2 years and if you are not a growing employee with a higher salary you could be at risk.

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#75

Post by scarface_74 »

ravenstine wrote: post #47
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…

Career frameworks at corporations should be mostly ignored. They are thinly veiled attempts to extract more work from the same employees. This is why "there's always room for improvement" is seemingly infinite. Your performance reviews can be stellar, BUT you surely must want to sacrifice more of your time and mental health to move to the next rung, right?

If as you are moving up in you career and you are doing “more” work and not “different” work, you’re doing it wrong.

It means you’re failing at some combination of knowing how to delegate, how to communicate trade offs between time, cost and requirements and how to prioritize

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#76

Post by bdndndndbve »

sabellito wrote: post #59
SirHound wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because “impact” is generally code for making other people rich. If you’re in a small enough company for your impact to matter, chances are your stock options are still chips, which you might never get to cash in. If the company is post IPO then chances are your impact will never move the needle materially for yourself. Income is really the only thing that matters. When you do the same job and aren’t getting i…

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.

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#77

Post by [deleted] »

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?

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#78

Post by francisofascii »

niklasrde wrote: post #19
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.

Do you think that's a bad thing? writing code != building things. In my org, seniors spend a lot less time building things: writing components, etc. They do spend a lot of time navigating office politics. But they are engineering specific office politics: how does system A interact with system B? What are the architectural implications? Ownership of long term data and technical and business strategies? The "art" of n…

In the orgs that I have worked in, there were very few developers who could actually handle coding complex features and applications. The people navigating the office politics are important, but let's not pretend they are actually capable of pulling off the work. They can understand that "system A interacts with system B" at a high conceptual level, but are not capable of digging down at the detailed level necessary to make it happen.

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#79

Post by scarface_74 »

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.

I’m kind of in the same boat, I did my first and hopefully only stint at BigTech between 46-49. During that time my youngest (step)son graduated and moved out on his own, we paid off some debt, downsized to a smaller condo , sold our big house in the burbs and started traveling a lot after I started working remotely.

Yes I am a “staff” engineer at a smaller company now - equivalent in pay to around what I was making as an l5 (mid level) at BigTech. But with a lot less stress. I have no need to make more money except for inflation adjustments

Re: Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

#80

Post by 0xEF »

scarface_74 wrote: post #73
0xEF wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also in the same boat as both of you, but I'm not sure I agree with the idea that I need to do a bunch of extra work to prove some nebulous concept like "impact at the next level" or whatever buzzwoo we want to say in place of that. If the manager wants to develop my talent, then they need to get off their over-priced rear ends and do so. I feel like making everyone at the lower levels shoulder all of the account…

> If the manager wants to develop my talent, then they need to get off their over-priced rear ends and do so. You are responsible for your own career. When (hypothetical) you get ready to look for another job, do you really want to only be able to say that you were a ticket taker or do you want to be able to say you led initiatives? Even if you don’t really care about getting ahead, you still have to be able to stand…

I never said anything about not being responsible for my own career. There was a previous implication that we need to help the boss look good, which is BS. If I want to develop myself because I want to explore different options or expand my skill set, I am free to and generally opt to do so. If a manager wants to develop my skills, then that is their responsibility.

Again, let's not shift all the accountability to the guys lower on the ladder. It's a team effort.

Perhaps I just don't understand your mindset because I do not define myself by my career. Work is just how I exchange some of my time and effort for money so I can focus my life on the things I actually matter to me, so the "weight" of my career is perhaps different than yours. Which is fine, btw. I don't really have any issues if someone wants to make their career their life, but I'll never align with that, especially not at this late in my adult life.

Post reply on HN