Associate Manager, AI Research Lab Strategy & Operations

About The Team

AI Research Lab is one of DoorDash’s frontier innovation hubs, focusing on building the foundation for an AI-native future across consumers, merchants, and dashers. The Lab operates at the center of technical exploration and real-world execution, connecting frontier model research with internal platform investments, operator teams, and strategic external partners.

About The Role

You will play a central role in converting frontier AI advancements into shipped products and scalable infrastructure. You will operate across research, product, and operations to move from early discovery and experimentation to deployment and impact. This role sits at the intersection of customer insight, technical innovation, and business execution.

• Reimagining core experiences through AI, such as the merchant journey, by partnering directly with in-field merchants, sales, support, product, and engineering teams.
• Own revenue-driving AI initiatives, operating as the accountable business owner for high-priority AI bets and ensuring clear linkage between technical progress and financial outcomes.
• Lead business planning cycles, developing go-to-market strategies for AI-powered products and capabilities, overseeing execution through structured project plans, resource allocation, and KPI tracking.
• Develop new business metrics and measurement frameworks, including:
• Defining what should be measured and why
• Establishing performance thresholds using data-driven benchmarking
• Localizing metrics across geographies and market types
• Driving AI adoption across DoorDash by enabling non-technical teams with enterprise tools, workflows, and experimentation sandboxes that integrate AI into daily operations.
• Building scalable AI foundations, including evaluation datasets, guardrails, monitoring systems, and strategies for custom foundation models that ensure safety, reliability, and long-term leverage.
• Operationalizing frontier technologies from external partners (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, and emerging startups), translating research breakthroughs into revenue-generating product capabilities and production systems.
• Supporting the development of a DoorDash data collection marketplace, strengthening proprietary data advantages and long-term model performance.
• Leading rapid experimentation cycles, validating product-market fit, measuring business impact, and ensuring AI initiatives translate into tangible outcomes.

Qualifications

You have a Bachelor’s degree or higher, 3+ years of experience in consulting, strategy, or operations; high-growth/early-stage startup or entrepreneurial experience is a big plus. You are an expert communicator and interpersonal skills set you apart. You are a strong analytical thinker who can provide applicable recommendations out of a complex, sometimes murky, dataset. You have a bias towards action and are able to thrive in a fast-paced, constantly changing work environment. You are excellent at motivating potential partners to see the benefits DoorDash Commerce Platform will bring to their business. You are comfortable regularly exercising discretion and independent judgment in performing job duties, including evaluating options, making informed decisions, and determining appropriate courses of action within the scope of assigned responsibilities.

Pay

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.

Benefits

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).

We also offer 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.

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

Application Instructions

To apply, please visit our careers page and submit your resume and cover letter.