At this year’s Databricks Data + AI Summit, Dropbox Engineering Manager Chris Neat joined Fivetran’s Senior Global Director, Partner Sales Engineering Kelly Kohlleffel on stage to share how Dropbox is navigating rapid data growth, integrating new tools at scale, and unlocking greater agility across the business using Fivetran and Databricks.
From bottlenecks to business acceleration
With more than 700 million users and an 80-90 petabyte data lake, Dropbox operates at a scale that rivals fellow tech giants but with a leaner team. Neat explained that the proliferation of new tools and data sources created pressure on the team to keep pace without slowing the business down: Enter Fivetran.
By automating data ingestion from 60 sources into Databricks, Dropbox shifted from reactive data management to a self-service model. Before Fivetran, Dropbox’s lean data team struggled to keep up with constant requests to integrate new tools and data sources — a problem that compounded every quarter. Fivetran solved this very real, very practical challenge by enabling scalable, automated ingestion that keeps pace with business demands. Business teams can now onboard new sources into their data lake without filing engineering tickets, saving Dropbox the equivalent of 3 full-time engineers.
“The last thing we want to be is a blocker for the business,” Neat shared. “Fivetran allowed us to get out of the way and focus on building value.”
This transformation also freed the data engineering team to focus on high-impact projects like building data models and decision support systems.
Unlocking ROI with rapid data activation
Dropbox’s marketing team is one of the biggest beneficiaries of this transformation. With Fivetran and Databricks, the team re-instrumented its business metrics and built a new driver model data mart — a platform for executive decision support — within 3-4 months. This initiative enabled the team to:
- Ingest and decorate ad data quickly
- Build a rreturn-on-ad-spend (ROAS) data mart
- Tie marketing performance directly to revenue
- Accelerate time to insight for key decisions
- Drive real-time decision-making about marketing investments into various channels
- Reduce data ingestion and reporting time from 8 weeks to 30 minutes
As Neat put it, “Time to market is critical. Fivetran helps us get there faster.”
Looking ahead: From ingestion to governance
Now that ingestion is streamlined, Dropbox is turning its attention to data governance. With more business users self-serving data, Dropbox is building a codified, discoverable metrics layer to ensure data quality, compliance, and trust at scale.
“Fivetran solved the ingestion problem,” Neat said. “Now, we’re focused on making sure every business-critical metric is high quality and governed.”
The company also elevated customer support by enabling the CX team to access real-time insights into the customer experience.
Why Fivetran + Databricks?
Databricks Data Intelligence Platform brings powerful BI, machine learning (ML), and generative AI capabilities, but they’re only as effective as the data feeding them. Fivetran ensures that high-quality, trusted data flows into the platform, unlocking its full potential so Dropbox can scale data products, marketing analytics, and internal operations with speed and confidence.
“Fivetran helps us move fast when time to market is critical. It enables true self-service for the business, and we’re finally getting close to the elusive goal of making it work at scale.”
— Chris Neat, Engineering Manager at Dropbox
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