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About This Role
About the Team
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The Ads \& Promos Delivery team powers the last\-mile delivery of ads and promotions, two marketing products offered to merchants, connecting merchant intent with consumer demand across search and discovery experiences. As a Senior Staff Engineer, you will lead the technical direction for AI\-first experiences, including ranking and relevance systems that sit at the core of our ads marketplace and shape how ads are selected, ordered, and personalized in real time across all verticals.
You will design and build next\-generation AI\-first ranking systems using state\-of\-the\-art techniques such as sequence modeling, deep learning, and large language models (LLMs). Your work will span query understanding, user and merchant representation learning, contextual relevance, and multi\-objective optimization, balancing advertiser value, consumer experience, and marketplace health at scale.
You will set the long\-term technical vision, drive cross\-team alignment, and translate cutting\-edge research into production systems that operate under strict latency, scale, and reliability constraints.
As DoorDash expands into 40\+ global markets and new verticals such as Grocery and Retail, this role offers a rare opportunity to define how modern AI, including sequential models and LLM\-powered decisioning, reshapes ads relevance in a closed\-loop marketplace.
About the Role
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- Apply state\-of\-the\-art machine learning and LLM techniques to problems across personalization, query understanding, user and content understanding.
- Rigorously evaluate ML and LLM models using a combination of offline analysis and online experimentation, designing metrics and experiments that clearly measure quality, impact, and tradeoffs.
- Own the full model lifecycle from research to production, including data analysis, model development, evaluation, offline and online A/B testing, and continuous iteration.
- Partner closely with product managers, data scientists, and designers to ensure AI\-driven systems deliver meaningful, user\-facing improvements.
- Stay at the forefront of ML and AI innovation by assessing emerging research and translating promising approaches into scalable, production\-ready systems.
This is a high\-impact role for someone who enjoys combining economic intuition, large\-scale ML modeling, and applied engineering to solve complex real\-world optimization problems.
You're excited about this opportunity because you will…
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- Own impactful ML systems: Build and improve models that directly have a large impact on top and bottom line financials.
- Collaborate cross\-functionally: Partner with engineering, analytics, product, and operations to iterate quickly, moving models from prototype to production
- Shape the future: We're one of the fastest growing Ads platforms in the world and we're looking to take that even further!
We're excited about you because you have…
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- 5\+ years of experience building, deploying, and scaling ML and AI models for large\-scale, user\-facing or data\-intensive products.
- Proficiency in using AI coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, Codex, Cursor) in the full software development lifecycle, including designing, generating code, testing, monitoring and releasing software
- BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
- Deep expertise in one or more of the following areas: deep learning, large language models, information retrieval, ranking and relevance, recommendation systems, natural language processing, or content understanding.
- Strong programming skills in Python, Java, or C\+\+, with hands\-on experience using ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or XGBoost.
- Extensive experience across the full ML lifecycle, including data analysis, feature engineering, iterative model development, rigorous offline and online evaluation, and ongoing monitoring and improvement.
- Strong collaborator and communicator who thrives in fast\-paced, cross\-functional environments.
- Product\-minded and impact\-driven, with a passion for applying cutting\-edge ML and AI techniques to real\-world problems.
### Bonus Points For
- Experience designing and deploying LLM\-based systems, including prompt engineering and retrieval\-augmented generation (RAG) architectures, Generative RecSys.
- Experience solving large\-scale, user\-centric and content\-centric personalization problems, including user modeling, retrieval, ranking, and relevance.
- Demonstrated contributions to the ML community through open\-source projects, publications, or applied research in areas such as ML, NLP, information retrieval, or related fields.
About DoorDash
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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 by enabling door\-to\-door delivery, and we are looking for team members who can help us go from a company that is known as the place you order 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
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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.
Notice to Applicants for Jobs Located in NYC or Remote Jobs Associated With Office in NYC Only
We used 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 provided Covey with job requirements and candidate submitted applications. We began using Covey Scout for Inbound from August 21, 2023, through December 21, 2023\. We resumed using Covey Scout for Inbound again on June 29, 2024, and ceased using Covey Scout for Inbound on April 30, 2026\.
The Covey tool has been reviewed by an independent auditor. Results of the audit may be viewed here:https://getcovey.com/nyc\-local\-law\-144.
Salary Context
This $242K-$357K range is above the 75th percentile for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $181K across 1996 roles with salary data).
View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →Role Details
About This Role
AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.
Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.
Across the 3,824 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 71% of the market. At DoorDash, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
Skills Required
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.
Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $178,940 based on 11,900 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $227,400. This role's midpoint ($299K) sits 68% above the category median. Disclosed range: $242K to $357K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $200,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $253,000. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Engineering Manager ($293,500) and AI Safety ($274,200). By seniority level: Entry: $97,380; Mid: $160,000; Senior: $227,400; Director: $243,000; VP: $250,000.
DoorDash AI Hiring
DoorDash has 5 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, Data Engineer. Positions span San Francisco, CA, US, Washington, DC, US, New York, NY, US. Compensation range: $200K - $357K.
Location Context
AI roles in San Francisco pay a median of $253,000 across 1,990 tracked positions. That's 26% above the national median.
Career Path
Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.
The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.
What to Expect in Interviews
Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.
When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 3,824 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 119 entry-level, 1,813 mid-level, 1,472 senior, and 420 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 16% of the market (613 positions). The remaining 3,187 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $200,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $253,000. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. Highest-paying categories: AI Engineering Manager ($293,500 median, 31 roles); AI Safety ($274,200 median, 51 roles); Research Engineer ($260,000 median, 401 roles).
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 3,824 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (2,702), Data Scientist (281), AI Software Engineer (258). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (119) are outnumbered by mid-level (1,813) and senior (1,472) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 420 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 16% of all AI roles (613 positions), with 3,187 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $200,000. Top-quartile roles start at $253,000, and the 90th percentile reaches $307,500. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Engineering Manager roles lead at $293,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $142,800. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (1,968 postings), Aws (1,203 postings), Azure (882 postings), Rag (877 postings), Gcp (735 postings), Prompt Engineering (587 postings), Pytorch (586 postings), Claude (554 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
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