Frankie Costa on Transitioning From Policy to Product
Working as a solutions engineer in NYC with a nontechnical degree, Frankie Costa describes how Dropbox has helped him learn on the job.
In college, I studied ethics, politics, and economics, and worked for the Vatican, a US Senator, a national intelligence association, and a security crisis and political risk consulting firm. In other words, my experiences focused on government, not tech work. But, by my senior year, I realized that the experiences I enjoyed most were building things; an organization, a conference, a project — I liked it when success and failure were always measurable, and where action could be taken to fix problems quickly and effectively. I began to think that because tech work culture tends to be flat, rather than hierarchical, working at a startup could be a great way to make a significant impact right away.
Beyond the people and the product, I was drawn to Dropbox in particular for three reasons: 1. The size: I thought my impact would be greater in a company with a few hundred people than at larger tech companies I was considering, 2. The growth: Dropbox offered the rare chance to contribute to a startup in hyper-growth as it matures, and 3. The program: I liked the broad exposure, and the learning and development opportunities that the Dropbox Rotation Program (DRP) offered.
When I joined DRP, I started in Account Security, focused on escalated security issues and helping overhaul Dropbox’s Core Operations policies. These policies govern how client-facing employees keep user information secure when communicating with or supporting customers. I worked on a side project with the Strategic Finance team to create a cash management dashboard for our CFO and research how peer companies were investing their money.
In my second rotation, I managed Dropbox Business resellers on the Partnerships team. I worked with another Dropboxer to identify key performance metrics and better ways of measuring those metrics, changed and enforced partner incentives, and reassigned support and resources based on partner output. I also ran and analyzed SQL queries — which filter and aggregate usage information from our database — to inform business development; we used this data to determine the best fit for Dropbox Pro partnerships and to negotiate with popular application developers that used our API.
During my rotations, I became more interested in understanding and distributing the product. At the end of the program, I joined our solutions architect team, a group of people who resolve technical barriers and help businesses understand the value of Dropbox. Going from a nontechnical major to a solutions engineering role was a steep ramp; I was the only person on the team with no engineering background at all. But my leads and coworkers invested heavily in me, from instructional assignments and shadowing, to one-on-one sessions teaching me the basics of scripting. One of my colleagues, a former DRP, took the initiative to train me daily for almost a full month. I tried to gather as much information as possible about cloud computing and information systems. I also spent a lot of time examining our API documentation, which enables developers to build applications on top of Dropbox, and I tested any product integrations I didn’t understand. I’m still learning every day.
I now work as a Solutions Architect (SA) and also serve as the Product Expert for Dropbox New York and a Product Specialist for Device Management. As an SA, I partner with Account Executives in New York and a team in Austin. I work with clients — Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, and Chief Information Security Officers — focusing on product, infrastructure, and network security; API capabilities and programming; data migration; implementation and deployment; product competition; and product roadmap. I educate my account executives on technical issues and explain them to the sales organization in our New York office.
In addition, I spend time working directly on product: I brainstorm solutions and testing schedules with Engineering, Product, and other product specialists; work with Product Managers on new features; participate in alpha and beta testing; relay client feedback; identify and flag bugs and limitations; write external collateral; communicate product changes and updates; and present at customer conferences.
I spend the remainder of my time working on some big projects — such as leading our research efforts on competing products and creating a central repository for training and resources — and some smaller ad-hoc projects that include data analysis.
Dropbox also encourages reserving time for personal development by making it part of my quarterly goals. Right now, I’m taking a course on Python.
I’ve learned a lot in my time at Dropbox. My advice to graduates interested in tech — especially those with little computer science background — is to seek a smaller company whose mission you believe in and determine what hard skills you want to develop early on. I’m grateful that Dropbox has taken a big bet on me. For new graduates interested in the tech industry, smaller companies that encourage growth can be a great option.
P.S. The Dropbox New York team is growing. We’d love for you to join us.
