Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer

DoorDash; California (MO); On-site; USD 243,000 - 357,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) matching

Paid parental leave

Wellness benefits

Paid time off

Job summary

DoorDash is seeking a Senior Staff Engineer to lead AI-first experiences for ads and promos, shaping how ads are selected and personalized in real time across global markets. You will own the full ML lifecycle, from research to production, collaborating with product, data science, and engineering teams to deliver scalable, low-latency ranking systems and meaningful improvements.

This role emphasizes cutting-edge techniques, including sequence models and LLM-powered decisioning, with strong focus

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience building, deploying, and scaling ML and AI models for large-scale, user-facing or data-intensive products.
• Proficiency with AI coding tools in the full software development lifecycle, including designing, generating code, testing and releasing.
• Strong documentation and collaboration skills with cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

• Own the full model lifecycle from research to production, including data analysis, model development, evaluation, and online experimentation.
• Design and evaluate ranking and relevance systems that balance advertiser value and user experience at scale.
• Collaborate with product managers, data scientists, and engineers to deliver AI-driven improvements.
• Stay ahead of ML/AI advancements and translate research into production-ready systems.

Skills

Deep learning

Information retrieval

Ranking and relevance

NLP

Python

PyTorch

Java

C++

LLMs

Education

BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field

Tools

Python

PyTorch

TensorFlow

XGBoost

Job description

About the Team

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

• 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…

• 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…

• 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.

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 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 range for this position within the United States, including Illinois and Colorado.

$242,800—$357,000 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 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.

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.