About the Team

DoorDash is building the world’s most reliable on-demand logistics engine. Behind the scenes, our Machine Learning Platform (MLP) powers critical real-time decision-making for millions of orders each day, supporting business-critical use cases like Ads, Groceries, Logistics, Fraud, and Search.

We’re looking for a Staff Software Engineer to lead our ML Serving initiatives—enabling seamless, high-performance, and highly scalable model inference at DoorDash. You will guide a small, talented team in developing and operating a next-generation ML serving platform that handles millions of QPS across a global marketplace.

About the Role

As the technical lead for ML Serving Platform, you will have a direct impact on DoorDash’s most mission-critical services, ensuring our models deliver real-time predictions reliably and at scale. You will partner closely with ML Engineers, and Infrastructure teams to design and operate the serving stack—everything from containerized model deployments to advanced feature lookups and GPU-based serving.

You will drive the roadmap, architecture, and best practices for a platform that must remain highly available, isolated across workloads, and cost-efficient—all while enabling rapid experimentation and iteration for model owners.

This is a hybrid opportunity in San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Seattle, or New York.

You’re excited about this opportunity because you will…

• Lead the Vision & Architecture - Set the technical direction for an extremely high-QPS (multi-million QPS) serving platform, enabling rapid and reliable deployment of ML models across a variety of use cases.
• Build for Scale & Reliability - Own and evolve our model serving stack to ensure zero-downtime, 24/7 operations. You’ll tackle unique scaling challenges around throughput, isolation, and latency.
• Enable Self-Serve Model Deployments - Develop abstractions, ensuring that ML Engineers can seamlessly bring their own models (BYOM), and custom GPU-accelerated workloads online.
• Improve Developer Velocity - Drive innovations that reduce time-to-production. Standardize workflows for deploying, validating, and monitoring ML services with strong observability and debugging capabilities.
• Collaborate Across the Company - Work closely with teams in Ads, Fraud, Logistics, Groceries, and more to tailor the serving platform for their specific needs while maintaining a core set of robust, reusable components.
• Mentor & Lead - Guide a small but growing team of senior engineers. Champion best practices, set coding standards, conduct design reviews, and help shape DoorDash’s ML culture.

We’re excited about you because…

• 8+ years of industry experience in software engineering, with at least 1 year of technical lead experience.
• Deep expertise in building large-scale, distributed systems—you’re comfortable architecting services that handle millions of requests per second with single-digit millisecond latencies.
• Strong knowledge of CS fundamentals and experience with programming languages like Python, golang, Kotlin, C++, or Java.
• Experience with production ML systems—you’ve built or operated high-QPS inference services, real-time feature stores, or large-scale data pipelines.
• Passion for reliability & performance—you’ve developed strategies for zero-downtime deployments, high availability, and low-latency serving, and you understand cost vs. performance trade-offs.
• Track record of technical leadership—you excel at collaboration, driving projects end-to-end, and mentoring other engineers in best practices.

Nice To Haves

• GPU experience for ML serving and real-time inference.
• Familiarity with deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow) and large language models (LLMs) such as GPT or BERT.
• Experience with microservices and container orchestration (Kubernetes, EKS).
• Cloud computing experience (AWS, GCP, etc.), including cost attribution and optimization.
• Background in model lifecycle management (MLflow, ML Orchestration systems, or metadata tracking).

Notice to Applicants for Jobs Located in NYC or Remote Jobs Associated With Office in NYC Only

We use Covey as part of our hiring and/or promotional process for jobs in NYC and certain features may qualify it as an AEDT in NYC. As part of the hiring and/or promotion process, we provide Covey with job requirements and candidate submitted applications. We began using Covey Scout for Inbound from August 21, 2023, through December 21, 2023, and resumed using Covey Scout for Inbound again on June 29, 2024.

The Covey tool has been reviewed by an independent auditor. Results of the audit may be viewed here: Covey

Compensation

The successful candidate's starting pay will fall within the pay range listed below and is determined based on job-related factors including, but not limited to, skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions.  Base salary is localized according to an employee’s work location. Ranges are market-dependent and may be modified in the future.

In addition to base salary, the compensation for this role includes opportunities for equity grants. Talk to your recruiter for more information.

DoorDash cares about you and your overall well-being. That’s why we offer a comprehensive benefits package for all regular employees that includes a 401(k) plan with an employer match, paid time off, paid parental leave, wellness benefits, and several paid holidays. Paid sick leave in compliance with applicable laws (i.e. Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Act).

Additionally, for full-time employees, DoorDash offers medical, dental, and vision benefits, disability and basic life insurance, family-forming assistance, a commuter benefit match, and a mental health program, among others. 

To learn more about our benefits, visit our careers page here.

The base pay for this position ranges from our lowest geographical market up to our highest geographical market within California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Washington. 

I4

$130,600—$192,000 USD

I5

$159,800—$235,000 USD

I6

$193,800—$285,000 USD

About DoorDash

At DoorDash, our mission to empower local economies shapes how our team members move quickly, learn, and reiterate in order to make impactful decisions that display empathy for our range of users—from Dashers to merchant partners to consumers. We are a technology and logistics company that started with door-to-door delivery, and we are looking for team members who can help us go from a company that is known for delivering food to a company that people turn to for any and all goods.

DoorDash is growing rapidly and changing constantly, which gives our team members the opportunity to share their unique perspectives, solve new challenges, and own their careers. We're committed to supporting employees’ happiness, healthiness, and overall well-being by providing comprehensive benefits and perks including premium healthcare, wellness expense reimbursement, paid parental leave and more.

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

We’re committed to growing and empowering a more inclusive community within our company, industry, and cities. That’s why we hire and cultivate diverse teams of people from all backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. We believe that true innovation happens when everyone has room at the table and the tools, resources, and opportunity to excel.

Statement of Non-Discrimination: In keeping with our beliefs and goals, no employee or applicant will face discrimination or harassment based on: race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, age, gender, marital/domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability status, or veteran status. Above and beyond discrimination and harassment based on “protected categories,” we also strive to prevent other subtler forms of inappropriate behavior (i.e., stereotyping) from ever gaining a foothold in our office. Whether blatant or hidden, barriers to success have no place at DoorDash. We value a diverse workforce – people who identify as women, non-binary or gender non-conforming, LGBTQIA+, American Indian or Native Alaskan, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latinx, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, differently-abled, caretakers and parents, and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply. Thank you to the Level Playing Field Institute for this statement of non-discrimination.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, and any other state or local hiring regulations, we will consider for employment any qualified applicant, including those with arrest and conviction records, in a manner consistent with the applicable regulation.

If you need any accommodations, please inform your recruiting contact upon initial connection.