Senior Machine Learning Engineer - New Verticals Agentic Foundations

DoorDash, Inc.; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 137,000 - 299,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity grants

Comprehensive benefits package

Parental leave (16 weeks)

Medical/Dental/Vision

Paid time off

Job summary

DoorDash is seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to join Agentic Foundations, focusing on vertical agent development within New Verticals ML. You will own continuous improvement of flagship agents, starting with the Ask Assistant, using an eval-driven loop to make them faster, cheaper, and more reliable for millions of customers.

You’ll collaborate with teams on agent memory, representations, and post-training of small language models, bringing these insights into production agents and

Qualifications

• 3+ years of ML experience with hands-on work building and shipping LLM-based agents (tool use, context management, prompting, guardrails) and evals/data.
• Experience with post-training or fine-tuning open-weight models (e.g., SFT, preference optimization, or RL).
• Strong NLP/ML foundation; proficiency in Python and frameworks like PyTorch or TensorFlow.

Responsibilities

• Raise the quality of Consumer agents by building eval harness and optimizing loop, improving prompts, tools, and context.
• Balance quality, latency, and cost with rigorous experiments and SLM deployment.
• Launch new agents for Merchants and Dashers from exploration to production.
• Turn foundations into product impact with memory and product representations in production agents.
• Shape the ML-driven roadmap for grocery and retail delivery growth.

Skills

LLM agents

Eval loops

Python

PyTorch

Open-weight models

Fine-tuning

Education

MS/PhD in CS or related

Tools

Post-training methods

SFT

RL

Job description

About the Team

Agentic Foundations, part of New Verticals ML, builds the core AI/ML intelligence that powers high-quality, scalable agents at DoorDash, and proves it through flagship agent experiences such as the Ask grocery assistant. We operate as a closed loop: new models, evals, and representations make our agents better, and real-world agent usage surfaces the gaps that drive our next foundations work.

About the Role

We’re looking for a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to join Agentic Foundations with a primary focus on Vertical Agent Development. You will own the continuous improvement of our flagship agents, starting with the Ask Assistant, using an eval-driven loop to make them faster, more cost-efficient, and more reliable for millions of customers. You will also help us bring this approach to new agentic experiences for Merchants and Dashers, turning promising ideas into production-ready agents.

This is a chance to work at the intersection of LLMs, agents, post-training, and evals on problems that ship. You will partner closely with engineers working on agentic memory, agent-compatible product representations, and post-training of small language models (SLMs), so that what we learn from production agents feeds directly back into our foundations, and what we build there makes our agents better.

You will report into the engineering lead on our New Verticals AI/ML team. We expect this role to be hybrid with some time in-office and some time remote.

You’re excited about this opportunity because you will…

• Raise the quality of our Consumer agents: build and refine our eval harness-optimization loop to pinpoint failure modes, then iterate on prompts, tools, skills, and context, and measure the impact on real customer tasks.


• Find the best balance of quality, latency, and cost: run rigorous experiments, including fine-tuning open-weights models and deploying small language models (SLMs) where they can replace or augment larger LLMs.


• Launch new agents: take agentic opportunities for Merchants and Dashers from early exploration to production.


• Turn foundations into product impact: work with teammates on agentic memory, agent-compatible product representations, and post-training SLMs for steerable generative recommendation, and bring those capabilities into production agents.


• Shape the roadmap: partner with engineering, product, and business leaders to define an ML-driven strategy for our fast-growing grocery and retail delivery business.

We’re excited about you because you have…

• 3+ years of industry ML experience, including hands‑on work building and shipping LLM‑based agents (tool use, context management, prompting, guardrails) and improving them with evals and data


• Experience with post‑training or fine‑tuning of open‑weights models (e.g., SFT, preference optimization, or RL), ideally including small language models, and sound judgment on quality, latency, and cost trade‑offs


• Strong foundation in NLP and machine learning, with proficiency in Python and frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow


• M.S. or PhD in Computer Science, Statistics, Math, or another quantitative field, or equivalent practical experience, plus a collaborative, growth‑minded approach and a drive for measurable impact

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.

DoorDash cares about you and your overall well‑being. That’s why we offer a comprehensive benefits package to all regular employees, which includes a 401(k) plan with employer matching, 16 weeks of paid parental leave, wellness benefits, commuter benefits match, paid time off and paid sick leave in compliance with applicable laws (e.g. Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Act). DoorDash also offers medical, dental, and vision benefits, 11 paid holidays, disability and basic life insurance, family‑forming assistance, and a mental health program, among others.

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

See below for paid time off details:

• For salaried roles: flexible paid time off/vacation, plus 80 hours of paid sick time per year.


• For hourly roles: vacation accrued at about 1 hour for every 25.97 hours worked (e.g. about 6.7 hours/month if working 40 hours/week; about 3.4 hours/month if working 20 hours/week), and paid sick time accrued at 1 hour for every 30 hours worked (e.g. about 5.8 hours/month if working 40 hours/week; about 2.9 hours/month if working 20 hours/week).

The national base pay ranges for this position within the United States, including Illinois and Colorado.

$137,100 — $201,600 USD

$167,800 — $246,800 USD

$203,500 — $299,300 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 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

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.

In case 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. Beware of recruitment scams: DoorDash, Deliveroo, and Wolt will never ask you to pay money or share sensitive financial information during hiring — learn more about our legitimate recruiting process at Recruitment Scam Awareness - DoorDash.