UTM Engineer - DoorDash Air

DoorDash USA; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 163,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity grants

401(k) matching

Paid parental leave

Wellness benefits

Job summary

DoorDash Air is hiring a Senior UTM Engineer to design core components of the internal route planning and airspace deconfliction stack. You will enable safe, efficient drone operations and ensure interoperability with external systems and partners.

This role demands experience with uptime-critical, distributed systems and a track record of shipping production services in safety-conscious domains. You will collaborate across engineering, operations, and business teams, and engage with industry

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience across the full lifecycle of distributed systems in safety-critical domains.
• Experience shipping production services that interoperate with external systems.
• Hands-on path planning, routing, or deconfliction problems in real-world environments.
• Ability to design clean integrations across organizational boundaries and communicate with non-engineering stakeholders.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals with C++, Python, Go.
• BS/MS/PhD in CS, EE, Aerospace, Robotics, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Nice to have: airspace management/UTM concepts, standards bodies, DO-178/ARP4761, real-time/embedded systems

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and deploy interoperable services that pass conformance testing with external systems.
• Develop path planning and airspace deconfliction algorithms for real-world environments.
• Build tools to evaluate airspace efficiency and utilization.
• Design integrations connecting the deconfliction stack to existing DoorDash systems.
• Collaborate with systems engineering, operations, and flight teams to ship robust features.
• Represent DoorDash Air in standards groups and industry forums.

Skills

Distributed systems

C++

Python

Go

Algorithm design

Interoperability testing

Stakeholder communication

Education

BS/MS/PhD in CS, EE, Aerospace, Robotics

Job description

The DoorDash Air team is bringing drone delivery to reality. To make this happen, we’re building a strong electrical team to design high reliability, high power density converters, and fault-tolerant controls electronics. Come join us to build a new class of aircrafts and deploy at scale.

DoorDash Labs, established in 2018, serves as the innovation hub for DoorDash, focusing on developing automation and robotics solutions to enhance last-mile logistics. The team's mission is to create technologies that support and augment human networks, aiming to improve efficiency for Dashers, merchants, and consumers alike. We’re ruthlessly focused on business impact. We are a highly senior team composed of former pioneers from a variety of different robotics industries. As of 2025, DoorDash has completed 10B lifetime deliveries. We’re focused on how to do the next 10B even better.

About the Role

We're hiring a Senior UTM Engineer who will build core components of DoorDash Air's internal route planning and airspace deconfliction stack — the systems that decide where our aircraft can safely fly, coordinate that with other operators and airspace authorities, and keep our internal stakeholders and external systems talking to each other in terms they understand. This is a role for someone who has already lived through the full lifecycle of a distributed, interoperable, uptime-critical system in a field where getting it wrong has real consequences — aviation, finance, communications, healthcare, or similar — and wants to bring that judgment to a fast-moving aerial delivery network.

You’re excited about this opportunity because you will…

• Design, build, and deploy interoperable services that must pass rigorous, often open-source, conformance and integration testing against external systems and partners.
• Develop novel path planning and airspace deconfliction algorithms that find safe, efficient routes through real-world, dynamic environments.
• Build tools that help our teams and systems evaluate and optimize airspace efficiency and utilization.
• Design integrations that connect the deconfliction stack to existing DoorDash systems, translating mission and airspace status into terms internal stakeholders can act on.
• Collaborate closely with systems engineering, commercial operations, and flight operations to ship features that hold up in real-world flight.
• Represent DoorDash Air externally — engaging with peer companies, working groups, and standards bodies to improve interoperable deployments industry-wide and help shape the

We’re excited about you because…

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• You have 5+ years of experience across the full lifecycle — design, build, deployment, and operation — of distributed systems in aviation, finance, communications, healthcare, or another field where interoperability, uptime, and (ideally) safety criticality are core drivers of the work.
• You've built and shipped production services that had to interoperate with systems you didn't control, including passing external or open-source conformance/certification testing.
• You have hands-on experience with path planning, routing, or deconfliction problems in real-world, dynamic environments — or the algorithmic depth to pick this up quickly (graph search, optimization, or motion planning fundamentals).
• You're comfortable building evaluation and analysis tooling, not just the systems being evaluated — you like giving other teams visibility into system performance and efficiency.
• You can design clean integrations across organizational boundaries and translate technical system state into language that commercial, operations, and non-engineering stakeholders understand.
• You communicate well with non-technical stakeholders and are comfortable representing your work and your company outside of it — in standards working groups, industry forums, or direct collaboration with peers at other companies.
• You have strong software engineering fundamentals and experience with the languages and paradigms common to safety- and uptime-critical distributed systems (e.g., C++, Python, Go, or similar, plus familiarity with real-time or fault-tolerant system design).
• BS/MS/PhD in CS, EE, Aerospace, Robotics, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice to have:

• Experience with airspace management, air traffic control, or UAS traffic management (UTM) concepts and systems.
• Experience contributing to or engaging with technical standards bodies or open-source interoperability efforts.
• Familiarity with certification-aware development processes (e.g., DO-178, ARP4761) common to safety-critical aerospace software.
• Experience with real-time or embedded systems, or with systems that must degrade gracefully under partial failure.

Applications for this position are accepted on an ongoing basis

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.

$163,200 - $240,000 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 alike. 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.

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