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Role Description As a Software Engineer on the Metadata team, you’ll build and operate the large-scale distributed databases that every Dropbox service depends on. Metadata systems are mission-critical, in the live path for all user operations and must meet stringent requirements for latency, durability, and transactional consistency. You’ll design and evolve the core infrastructure that manages Dropbox’s databases at scale, enabling fast, reliable access to data for millions of users and hundreds of internal services. This work spans distributed systems, replication, caching, and transactional database systems. You’ll collaborate closely with engineers across Infrastructure and Product teams to ensure the metadata layer meets business needs and continues to scale with Dropbox’s growth. This is an opportunity to leverage your expertise in distributed systems and grow into broader technical leadership. Our Engineering Career Framework is viewable by anyone outside the company and describes what’s expected for our engineers at each of our career levels. Check out our blog post on this topic and more here . Responsibilities Design and maintain distributed database systems providing low-latency, strongly consistent data access Implement and optimize replication, consensus, and caching mechanisms to meet availability and performance goals Operate production systems, including participating in the on-call rotation, ensuring high availability and data durability Collaborate with infrastructure and product teams to assess current and future use cases and requirements, supporting the development of a mid- to long-term roadmap that reflects these needs Contribute to system design reviews, postmortems, and reliability improvements Write high-quality, efficient code in Go and Rust for performance-critical systems On-call work may be necessary occasionally to help address bugs, outages, or other operational issues, with the goal of maintaining a stable and high-quality experience for our customers. Requirements 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with strong expertise in distributed systems fundamentals including replication, consistency, partitioning, and fault tolerance Experience building database platforms, distributed databases, storage systems, or large-scale database infrastructure Proficiency in Go, Rust, C++ or similar systems languages Familiarity with consensus and coordination systems (e.g. Raft, Paxos, ZooKeeper, etcd) Experience operating production services and participating in on-call rotations Strong debugging and performance analysis skills Excellent collaboration and communication abilities across teams Preferred Qualifications Experience building distributed databases or storage systems Practical experience with and deep understanding of data structures used in storage systems (e.g. LSM trees, B-trees, Hash Indexes) Experience operating database systems (e.g. MySQL, Postgres, Cassandra) Experience with distributed caching, either custom built or operating open source options such as Memcached or Redis Experience improving reliability and performance in high-scale data systems Experience working with cross-functional teams to understand their current use cases, identify future needs and requirements, and incorporate them into the team’s roadmap. Interest in deepening distributed systems expertise and expanding technical leadership Compensation Poland Pay Range 272 000 zł — 368 000 zł PLN
Here's how to pick the right one and stand out in your application.
144.883Jobs
31.687IN
81%EN
That number is real. WorkMundi's database shows 144,883 open engineer roles across the world. India has the most with 31,687 jobs, followed by the United States with 30,084. If you just finished reading one job ad and felt paralyzed by choice, you're not alone—but this scale is actually an advantage. It means you can afford to be selective.
Start by geography and language. The majority of engineer ads—117,837 of them—have the job posting text written in English. Use that as one filter, but remember: the ad text language tells you nothing about whether the role actually requires you to speak English day-to-day. Read the job description carefully. Then check which countries have the volume you're targeting. Singapore, Poland, and Australia round out the top five after India and the US.
Next, learn who's hiring. Accenture has posted 2,801 engineer roles. andurilindustries, speechify, and jobgether are also actively recruiting. If you're applying to one of these names, research their hiring patterns and interview style before you apply. That homework pays off.
When you interview, expect the question every engineer hears: 'Tell me about a time you had to debug a problem that wasn't in your job description.' Have a specific story ready—not a general one. Name the tools, the deadline pressure, and what you learned. Hiring managers listen for whether you see problem-solving as part of the role itself, not a favour.