Interview started on time and scheduling and everything else was all fine. The interview was not that difficult. It was a good problem to solve.
I think the question could have been made a little more clearer to me. I understand sometimes interviewers deliberately may hide certain edge cases and expect the candidate to highlight or point those cases out with clarifying questions, however I feel the question given to me itself was incomplete and it took bit of time to understand and clarify the complete question which would have been better spent in optimizing the algorithm.
The interviewer was very young but I think some training needs to be given from Dropbox to make interviewers prepare for interviews as well, like shadow interviews or mock training. There was also a language barrier as the the interviewer clearly was not very comfortable with English when interviewing
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Nothing too difficult, study algorithm and graphs well
I applied online. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Dropbox
Interview
The recruiting process at Dropbox was one of the most disorganized I’ve experienced at a company of this size.
It started with a heavily proctored CodeSignal test requiring camera, microphone, and full screen recording the entire time. After passing, communication issues began. The recruiter ghosted multiple times, including for over a week, later blaming a company outing. Scheduling the final Virtual Day 1 (multiple technical rounds including a Deep Dive) took nearly two weeks.
The recruiter sent emails to the wrong address twice. After the interviews, I had to follow up myself. They claimed a rejection email had been sent (which never arrived), then offered detailed feedback and promised to reply within an hour, only to ghost again.
The final rejection mentioned “technical gaps,” even though I answered every question during the Deep Dive. No actual feedback was ever provided despite repeated promises.
For a major tech company, the complete lack of basic communication, accountability, and respect for candidates’ time was surprising and disappointing. Multiple broken promises and ghosting made the entire process feel chaotic and disrespectful.
You have been warned!
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Dropbox (Boston, MA) in Apr 2026
Interview
Applied online, received invite link to complete codesignal assessment shortly after. Rejected a while after without ever talking to a single human. Overall shows the company can't be bothered to take the time to talk to you.
Started with technical assessment via code signal which was kind of uncomfortable. Monitoring by camera/microphone/screen share, ID upload, selfie, etc. A lot of work to keep someone in a high pressure environment but I think standards are "loose" here. They just want to know you can code and it's probably all automated. This was followed by recruiter intro, then virtual on-site of 3 interviews.
Got rejected and recruiter was happy enough to provide feedback. Feedback reflected engineers that were very nit-picky and were looking for a specific solution. Positive signals during the interview, but completely different story in how they perceived my performance.
My casual conversations/questions with engineers felt like nails on a chalkboard. No interest. Perhaps because they're not excited to run these interviews. This felt like a red flag and the reality is that Dropbox has fallen off a cliff in terms of external appeal.
Senior Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Dropbox with 3.1 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 28% positive. To compare, the company-average is 46.9% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Senior Software Engineer roles take an average of 20 days to get hired, when considering 32 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Dropbox overall takes an average of 21 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Dropbox as a Senior Software Engineer according to 32 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 36%
One on one interview: 21%
Presentation: 15%
Group panel interview: 9%
Skills test: 9%
IQ intelligence test: 4%
Other: 4%
Drug test: 2%
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