A place for parents at Dropbox: How workplace flexibility helps Eddie and Rajan

Anyone who’s watched a film or TV show made in the last 70 years is familiar with the old-school caricature of the working father. He reads his newspaper at the breakfast table before heading off to work long hours at a boring job with a bunch of guys in suits. And he leaves his wife to take care of the cooking, cleaning, and kids. But modern working dads are flipping this stereotype on its head. They want more time to take on responsibilities at home and care for their children, and their employers have responded.

Dropbox has tried to focus on becoming a place where all working parents, including dads, can thrive. Eddie Ibarra, Global Head of Talent Brand Strategy, and Rajan Kapoor, Director of Security, are two such dads; Eddie is the proud father of 4-year-old daughter Emma, and Rajan is a devoted single dad to two daughters of his own, 8-year-old Ella and 5-year-old Anabel. Both Eddie and Rajan have to travel for work — something that, while still hard, is made easier with Dropbox supporting them.

“I picture myself as being a kid at heart too, so I just wanna hang out with her and play and do fun stuff and just be a kid with her,” said Eddie. “I love seeing the world through her eyes, or experiencing things with her that are so genuine and pure. The hardest part of being a working parent is being away from her, or not being able to have more of that time together.”

“But we’re pretty lucky to work for a place that takes such amazing care of us… with Dropbox, if we have to work late or travel, they’re always great about knowing you’ll need additional family time. Dropbox just affords a lot of great benefits in that sense, the flexibility to be a parent.”

Eddie was already a father when he came to Dropbox, and the flexible environment influenced his decision to apply for and accept his position. But Rajan had a second child on the way when he joined the team, so he had a slightly different experience — one that immediately helped him realize how much Dropbox cared.

“When I first joined Dropbox and lived in New York, I only had my older daughter, and we were pregnant with the second. Anabel was born 3 months after I started. Most New York companies give you a week of paternity leave as a father and make you take any additional time as vacation time. But Dropbox was really supportive about me taking that time off and disconnecting and being with my family while still having a job to come back to.”

On top of the travel and paternity leave benefits that Eddie and Rajan have experienced, Dropbox also provides parents with the flexibility to work when and where they need to. Eddie is able to take his daughter horseback riding Friday afternoons, and Rajan has the flexibility to work from home when his daughters are with him. In these cases, and many others, no one seems to mind. Eddie thinks this flexibility in the digital age has a lot to do with retaining employees that are also parents.

“We’re in an age where knowledge workers are living an always-connected life in an always-connected world. It doesn’t matter where you are anymore, people are working and connected. And not only do I not need to be at work, but I also don’t need any one device. I can access everything from any phone, laptop or tablet. So if you don’t allow people to do those other things when they want, and accommodate for their lives outside of work, you’re just not going to get the most out of people, or get people that are happy in their work and happy to contribute.”

In the end, the reason why these dads work so hard is so that they can disconnect and enjoy time with their families. They also hope that they can show their daughters what good work really means.

Rajan said, “The passion that I have for my job comes through with my daughters. It’s a great way to emulate for them what they can do with their lives. They can find something they’re care deeply about and do that, but at the same time have personal lives and grow their own family. It’s just demonstrating to them what a good job is.”

All parents are welcome here. Want to see where you might fit in? Explore our open positions.