I got a great IC3 offer @ Dropbox. But I read in a lot of places/heard from friends that upleveling from IC3 to IC4 is very difficult once you’re in. I don’t care so much about the TC (even my IC3 offer is 2x my startup salary). But I do care about the types of work I get to do. I love architectural and infrastructural work which I think only starts as an IC4. Also there’s the slight concern that I might get bored doing feature work. Again, coming from the early stage startup world I’m used to crazy hours, fast pace, and having my hand in just about every pot. From what I read Dropbox is pretty laid back, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing! I love that I have the option to coast. But do I have the option to…not coast? #dropbox
@New you’re mostly describing what it’s like to work at a non tech company (if work doesn’t add profits, then it’s a liability) vs tech (innovation while maintaining some level of stability and maturity is how a company stays around).
That’s good to know. I figured. Definitely will be better than my Amex experience. But just a little cautious. Thought I’d ask around before making a decision.
No one will stop you from doing architectural and infrastructural work. Just communicate the business value to your EM and PM, write a technical proposal and get at it
That’s good to know. Have you seen it done in practice though? I worked @ Amex around 6y ago. And I was on a team of 12 who’s sole job was to maintain the Amex Platinum signup form. Now you might think there’s a lot to it…there was not. The code was garbled, and maintained by a constantly turning over team of contractors. I went up to management multiple times with proposals to refactor. But they said it was a big business risk. The incremental changes we were making brought in lots of profit. Even a .1% increase by making a copy change would bring in enormous profit. But….breaking that form, even for a day, would be catastrophic. So the outcome was all our hands were tied. I did about 4h of real work a WEEK. Which might sound great…but it was not. It was mind numbingly boring. I joined every club @ Amex, and spent most of my days in the snack room talking to random people just to kill time. So obviously Dropbox won’t be quite that…but that experience always comes to mind when I see “laid back culture”.
I have, actually. Once you have several high level engineers to approve your proposal, then you’re good to go. I know where you’re coming from because I used to work for a healthcare company that is exactly like how banks are run to. Dropbox is laid back. Banks and healthcare companies are literally retirement communities