Sometimes, it seems history has reversed itself: American digital innovators are the explorers, and Europe is Terra Incognito.
It’s difficult to keep track of all the United States-based tech giants crossing the Atlantic and expanding into Europe on every level. Just in the last year, Facebook, Apple, Oracle and others have announced everything from ambitious new HQs and giant data centers to captured startup incubators.
San Francisco-based Dropbox is the latest U.S.-based data storage provider to respond to changing data security laws in the EU by launching dedicated services on the continent, following the trail blazed by IBM’s Blue Cloud, Google and Microsoft. (EU data rules have gotten stricter, requiring data created inside individual member countries to remain within storage and servers inside these geographic boundaries. While cloud services can be used for copy data, original data must be housed in servers inside each country, which is why all the American firms are upgrading in Europe.)
Dropbox is opening an Amsterdam operation to service the Benelux countries to go with its 3-year-old Dublin headquarters, and offices in Paris and London opened just last year. Dropbox executives are planning to open a Hamburg office this year to service the DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) countries.
Dropbox CEO Thomas Hansen announced the expansion last week and included some impressive numbers: About 75 percent of Dropbox users are outside of the US and a significant portion of that usage is by European businesses and consumers. Dropbox has huge penetration into the Benelux – Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg – with about 50 percent of Internet users signed up.
Hansen notes that moving into Europe means hosting data in local markets, so starting in the third quarter of this year, Dropbox’s third-party hosting partner, Amazon Web Services, will host Dropbox data in Germany.
All this means a lot of new Dropbox jobs on the continent. Dropbox is a different sort of company.
Let’s look at the details, because who knows … you might be qualified! According to Glassdoor, Dropbox is generous when it comes to compensation, with engineering talent paid an average of more than $150,000 per year. Moreover, Dropbox has a reputation (which it nurtures) as “Silicon Valley’s playground,” encouraging employees to goof around with other projects on company time.
Dropbox has dozens of jobs across Europe from Dublin to Hamburg:
AMSTERDAM
• A contract position for Benelux marketing manager.
Role description:
We are looking for an experienced Marketing Manager to own Benelux Marketing initiatives, working closely with the Senior Management team and covering Dropbox’s business and consumer products. The Marketing Manager will devise and implement a marketing strategy for the Benelux region, as well as communicate our global expansion, product and company updates with journalists and other thought leaders.
(Candidates must be fluent in Dutch and English.)
• Solutions architect (pre-sale)
Role Description
As a Solutions Architect in our EMEA Enterprise Sales team, you’ll play a huge role in helping companies understand the value of Dropbox for Business. It’ll be your mission to demystify technology, optimize the sales process, and break down any technical barriers that keep our customers from evaluating and adopting Dropbox.
Looks like there’s no language requirement other than you must be able to communicate with tech geeks.
DUBLIN
• International accountant (contract)
Role description includes:
No language requirements except English, which you speak.
HAMBURG
DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) Marketing Manager
Role description includes:
We are looking for an experienced Marketing Manager to own DACH Marketing initiatives, working closely with the Senior Management team and covering Dropbox’s business and consumer products. The Marketing Manager will devise and implement a marketing strategy for the DACH region, as well as communicate our global expansion, product and company updates with journalists and other thought leaders.
LONDON
Performance marketing manager EMEA
Responsibilities include:
PARIS
Channel manager
Responsibilities include:
- Source, structure, negotiate, and execute distribution partnerships with long-term mutual alignment
- Drive business planning and goal setting processes with partners and work with cross-functional teams (Legal, Finance, Design, Marketing, Product, etc.) to achieve those business objectives
- Train and collaborate with reseller sales teams to bring the best Dropbox experience to their customers
SPAIN
Partner Account Manager
Role description:
As our first Partner Account Manager in Spain, you will manage partner relationships, including marketing development and sales processes. You will be the partner’s key point of contact interfacing with teams across the Dropbox organization in order to ensure the success of Dropbox and our partners.
STOCKHOLM
Regional Sales Manager – Nordics
Responsibilities include:
- Be one of our first Senior Salespeople on the ground in Scandinavia
- Manage the full sales cycle, from building awareness and generating leads closing large deals
- Build and manage a sales pipeline across the assigned territory/accounts while growing successful, long-lasting relationships with decision makers and influencers (IT managers, CIOs, executives, etc.) to consistently meet quarterly and annual revenue targets and company goals.
There are no language requirements specified, but you have to have experience selling software-as-a-service products in the Nordic B2B markets.
These are just a few of the positions Dropbox has open, many related directly to its Europe expansion. The words “must be eligible to work in the EU” appear in each Dropbox ad. Your way around that might be the company simply being able to find local nationals with the relevant skills. Which opens the door to English-speaking expats in including Americans.
For more on the rules on working in Europe, see this related Dispatches post.
Co-CEO of Dispatches Europe. A former military reporter, I'm a serial expat who has lived in France, Turkey, Germany and the Netherlands.
