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Reasonable place to work, huge product issues

Software Engineer
Former Employee
Worked at Dropbox for less than 1 year
May 24, 2017
San Francisco, California
3.0
Doesn't RecommendNeutral OutlookDoesn't Approve of CEO
Pros

Lots of employee perks.

Beautiful office.

Amazing food.

Still a good chunk of smart people remaining at the company, though this is changing quickly.

Coworkers were really nice and generally had strong character.

Cons

Zero product direction -- the CEO has had lots of trouble strategically and has effectively stepped back from that role, meaning that no one with power over multiple orgs is steering the company.

High-level goals are dumped at the feet of inexperienced senior managers, who are then responsible for vague product goals ("more collaboration!") and can't translate them into a product roadmap.

Projects are often too safe, and amount to UI tweaks (a giant overhaul of the barely-used website, for example) or moonshot projects with no strategy or go-to-market that eventually die before reaching customers.

A recent de-emphasis on business/sales objectives in favor of shiny consumer toys, despite major strategic pitfalls.

Advice to Management

Chart a course more concrete than "collaboration" or "the best place to get work done" -- something that directly translates into a product roadmap with a clear go-to-market and value proposition for customers.

Put customer problems first and business problems second.

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