Director, Product Design

Dropbox is a Virtual First company. For this role, we are currently only authorized to hire candidates from the following provinces: Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and Saskatchewan.

Role Description

Dropbox's Design team is looking for a Director of Product Design to define the next generation of product experiences and infrastructure for Dropbox. In this role, you will lead the vision, strategy, and execution for the systems, patterns, and operating model that shape how Dropbox builds coherent, high quality, multi product experiences at scale.

We are building a modern system that can support a broader portfolio of products, accelerate product teams to achieve product market fit, improve front end quality, and create durable patterns for the most important product experiences across Dropbox. You will lead the team responsible for turning repeated product needs into reusable experience infrastructure: interaction patterns, product frameworks, design primitives, implementation standards, and adoption models that make it easier for teams to build excellent Dropbox experiences.

As Director, you will oversee the evolution of Dropbox's design system into a next generation design and technology platform. This includes the foundational system of components, tokens, accessibility standards, and documentation, but also the broader lifecycle of product patterns: how they are identified, designed, validated, built, adopted, measured, improved, and eventually deprecated. You will help move the team from a reactive model, where design systems patternize work after the fact, to a more proactive model, where the team helps shape core product experiences from the beginning.

You will also establish Design Systems and Design Technology as a center of excellence for front end product quality. This team should not only define what good looks like, but help build it. That means partnering deeply with product designers, engineers, product managers, researchers, brand, and leadership to create high leverage patterns that improve product coherence, accelerate execution, and raise the quality bar across web, mobile, desktop, and emerging AI native experiences.

The ideal candidate is a systems minded design leader with excellent product judgment, strong craft standards, deep experience leading multidisciplinary teams, and the ability to operate across strategy, execution, governance, and organizational influence. You should be equally comfortable defining a long term vision for the future of design systems, reviewing the details of a complex interaction pattern, partnering with engineering on implementation quality, and helping senior leaders understand where the product experience needs stronger horizontal investment.

This is a critical leadership role for Dropbox's multi product future. You will help define how shared product experiences are built, how teams adopt them, how quality scales, and how Dropbox creates a more coherent, intelligent, and durable product experience for customers.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the vision for Dropbox's next generation design system, expanding it from a component library into a broader product experience platform for patterns, primitives, standards, and shared product logic.
• Lead Design Systems and Design Technology as a center of excellence for front end product quality, interaction patterns, accessibility, implementation standards, and cross product experience coherence.
• Build and evolve reusable product patterns that drive core Dropbox experiences, including navigation, creation flows, sharing, permissions, collaboration, onboarding, search, content activation, notifications, settings, admin workflows, and AI assisted experiences.
• Move the team from reactive patternization to proactive product leadership, helping identify horizontal product needs early and shaping solutions that can scale across multiple Dropbox surfaces and teams.
• Own the full lifecycle of shared patterns and components, including discovery, definition, design, prototyping, engineering partnership, adoption, measurement, maintenance, governance, and deprecation.
• Partner closely with Product, Engineering, Research, Brand, Marketing, and Design leadership to align on the highest impact horizontal opportunities and ensure shared systems directly support product strategy.
• Raise the craft and quality bar across Dropbox by improving interaction design, visual quality, information architecture, accessibility, motion, content patterns, implementation fidelity, and front end consistency.
• Create an operating model that makes adoption desirable rather than mandated, ensuring product teams see the system as a way to move faster, build better, and reduce duplicated effort.
• Lead and develop a team of designers, design technologists, and systems specialists, creating clear ownership, strong critique practices, high standards, and a culture of pragmatic systems thinking.
• Partner with engineering leadership to improve the relationship between design systems, code, product infrastructure, and front end delivery, ensuring that design intent is translated into high quality implementation.
• Establish durable governance, measurement, and contribution models that help the system evolve continuously while maintaining quality, coherence, and accountability.
• Help Dropbox prepare for AI native product experiences by defining systems that can encode design knowledge, guide product decisions, and support more adaptive, contextual, and intelligent experiences over time.

Requirements

• 12+ years of product design, design systems, design technology, or front end experience, including significant experience leading complex systems or platform initiatives at scale.
• 5+ years of people management experience, with a strong track record of leading senior designers, managers, design technologists, or multidisciplinary systems teams.
• Deep experience building, scaling, or transforming design systems for complex multi product organizations.
• Strong product judgment and the ability to connect systems work directly to customer value, product strategy, execution speed, and business impact.
• Exceptional systems thinking, with the ability to see patterns across teams, products, platforms, and workflows, then turn those patterns into reusable experience infrastructure.
• High craft standards across interaction design, information architecture, visual design, accessibility, prototyping, content patterns, motion, and implementation quality.
• Proven ability to influence senior cross functional partners, create alignment across ambiguous problem spaces, and drive horizontal product quality without relying on mandate alone.
• Strong technical fluency and comfort partnering with front end engineering teams on component architecture, implementation standards, platform constraints, quality control, and system adoption.
• Experience defining governance models, contribution models, quality standards, documentation practices, and lifecycle processes for shared product systems.
• A clear point of view on the future of design systems, including how AI, design technology, design infrastructure, and reusable product logic should change how teams design and build.
• A collaborative, low ego leadership style, with a track record of developing talent, raising standards, improving critique, and helping teams produce better work than they could have produced on their own.
• A portfolio or body of work that demonstrates strong design leadership, systems strategy, product impact, organizational influence, and excellent taste.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading design systems, design technology, front end platform, or product infrastructure teams in a large scale, multi product organization.
• Deep understanding of how to leverage content systems as part and parcel of the overall design system.
• Experience building shared patterns for complex product domains such as collaboration, content management, permissions, search, productivity, AI, administration, or multi product ecosystems.
• Strong technical fluency across coded systems, design tokens, component architecture, accessibility infrastructure, prototyping tools, and front end implementation quality.
• A strong point of view on the future of design systems, including how AI, design technology, and reusable product logic should evolve the way teams design and build.

Compensation

Canada Pay Range

$216,800\u2014$293,300 CAD

The range listed above is the expected annual salary/OTE (On-Target Earnings) for this role, subject to change.

Salary/OTE is just one component of Dropbox's total rewards package. All regular employees are also eligible for the corporate bonus program or a sales incentive (target included in OTE) as well as stock in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs).

Read more about our benefits here.

Company Description

Dropbox isn't just a workplace\u2014it's a living lab for designing a more enlightened way of working. We're a global community of bold visionaries and resourceful doers shaping the future of Dropbox and, in turn, the future of work. Our Virtual First model combines the autonomy of a distributed workplace with the power of human connection, creating space for meaningful work and lasting relationships. With a startup mindset and enterprise-level opportunities, we expect Dropbox employees to think critically, stay curious, and use modern tools, including AI, to improve how work gets done. Here, you can be who you are and grow into who you're meant to be. You own your impact, helping make work more intuitive, joyful, and human for yourself and hundreds of millions of people worldwide. If you're ready to push boundaries and challenge yourself, Dropbox is ready for you.

Team Description

The Dropbox Design & Research Team creates experiences that make work feel effortless. We're problem solvers and innovators, combining research insights with thoughtful design to craft solutions that make users' lives easier. Our research spans the full spectrum\u2014from usability and evaluative studies to foundational and generative work\u2014helping us uncover, understand, and solve the right problems at the right time. This is especially critical in the evolving AI space, where depth, rigor, and innovation are essential. We don't just make things look good\u2014we make complex technologies feel intuitive and joyful by putting human needs at the center. If you're passionate about creating products that are equally thoughtful, powerful, and delightful, join our Design & Research team.

Virtual First

Dropbox's Virtual First way of working is designed to help people do their best work with flexibility, autonomy, and connection. Day to day, teams work remotely with nonlinear schedules and core collaboration hours that support deep focus and individual working styles. We prioritize asynchronous communication to improve clarity, respect deep work time, and reduce unnecessary meetings. While remote work is the primary experience for our employees, we also prioritize intentional, in-person connection. We bring teams together through regular team gatherings, on-demand workspaces, and Dropbox Neighborhood events in order to strengthen team cohesion, foster creativity, and enhance momentum. Virtual First is built to provide the same access to opportunity, growth, and impact for everyone, regardless of location.

This role requires travel to offsites and various other team gatherings (approximately 5-10% of the year or 2-3 days per quarter). We provide advance notice when possible and encourage candidates to discuss any accommodation needs during the interview process.

AI Fluency

AI fluency is a core part of how we work and grow. It's not about being an expert\u2014it's about using these tools thoughtfully and effectively to improve your work and support others.

We look for four key behaviors in candidates:

• Ownership: You use AI responsibly by protecting data, applying sound judgment, and taking accountability for the quality and accuracy of your work.
• Experimentation: You explore new AI capabilities and apply them to improve workflows within approved tools and practices.
• Leverage: You use AI to enhance thinking, improve efficiency, and increase your impact and your team's.
• Learning: You stay current on emerging AI tools and trends, continuously build your skills, and share what you learn with others.

Together, these behaviors help build a workforce where technology amplifies human judgment, creativity, and impact.

Dropbox supports responsible use of AI for preparation, but misrepresentation of skills or experience is not permitted. To learn more, see our approach to AI in hiring.

Dropbox is an equal opportunity employer. We are a welcoming place for everyone, and we do our best to make sure all people feel supported and connected at work.