Learn about our quiet, cozy Mountain View office from Infrastructure Software Engineer Agata Cieplik
Not far from our San Francisco headquarters, another Dropbox office works away in the relative quiet of a historic Bay Area neighborhood. That office is Mountain View, where a small team of Dropboxers form essential parts of our engineering and business teams. We chatted with Infrastructure Software Engineer Agata Cieplik to learn a little more about her journey to Dropbox and why she loves our Mountain View office.
How long have you been working for Dropbox?
Almost four years. I started in the New York City office in 2016.
Is there a product or feature you’ve been part of recently that you’re particularly proud of?
I’m working with a team in the process of migrating to a new routing system using Envoy, which is an open source product. One of the things I’m really proud of is that I made my first open source pull request! On the Dropbox tech blog, there was actually a recent post about our work.
What’s your favorite thing about the Mountain View office?
It’s a small office, which is also what I loved about New York four years ago. You get to know more people and it has this cozy feeling. It’s also really quiet, so you get to focus and be super productive. When I started working from the Mountain View office, I felt like I did like 300% of what I would normally do in the same amount of time.
What do you miss most about being in the office right now?
Definitely social interactions. It’s kind of small, so you’re not just spending time with your direct team, but other people as well. We used to grab lunches together every day — in the Mountain View office there’s no Tuck Shop [our employee cafeteria], so you actually get to go outside on Castro Street and eat at restaurants and have some cool conversations with your coworkers. Also, every wall in the office is a whiteboard, so it’s pretty common that people start talking and grabbing markers and drawing things, and I definitely miss that. Right now, during lockdown, you’re kind of on your own in terms of drawing those things you’re trying to imagine. You can Zoom, and it’s helpful to talk still, but it’s not the same.
What’s one of your favorite Dropbox memories/events?
From the perspective of someone who’s an immigrant and basically moved to the U.S. from Poland for Dropbox, I definitely have to underline how Dropboxers welcomed me. It was in the New York office, back when there were around 100 people, and I really felt like people were putting in effort into making me feel welcomed and not like a stranger who’s just made it here and doesn’t know what’s going on.
What’s the first place you want to travel when quarantine is over?
I’d like to go back home to Poland. It’s been about a year and a half since I’ve been back.
What’s your go-to WFH lunch?
Definitely some dish with chicken and rice — something that you can pull out of the fridge and it’s ready in 20 minutes!
What’s your favorite thing about working from home?
When you’re in the office, you’re there for a certain time. If you don’t get something done, you either need to work from home later on, or wait for another day. What I do like from working from home is that when I have this mental block in the middle of the day and can’t focus, I just take a break. I can go watch another episode of a show that I’m watching or do something else and come back to my room later to work for another couple hours.
What’s is it like being a woman in tech? What is one piece of advice you’d give to another woman thinking about pursuing a career in tech?
I’m actually working on something related to this, I have a website in Polish for women in tech. I personally haven’t experienced too much prejudice, and I don’t feel treated differently from my male peers. But I think the main block for lots of women is feeling that they’re not good enough. Instead of applying for a new job, or going to their manager and discussing picking up different projects or promotions, lots of women just assume they’re not good enough and need extra courses and extra work. They constantly feel like they’re not perfect, so they can’t apply for this new role just yet. Set the right expectations for yourself, you don’t need to be perfect, just keep trying! If you don’t try, you definitely won’t get there.
Interested in learning more about our Mountain View office, or our other locations across the world? You can find more information and job postings here.
