Software Engineer, Backend - DoorDash Air

About The Team

DoorDash Labs is an independent team within DoorDash. We explore robotics and automation to transform last-mile logistics in the long term. The Air team focuses on bringing the dream of fast, efficient, and delightful last mile delivery through the air to life.

About The Role

• Design and implement backend services for autonomous drone delivery that integrates with core DoorDash data, focusing on intelligent path planning, real-time fleet management, and dynamic airspace awareness.
• Develop and maintain robust, scalable, and fault-tolerant systems to manage a fleet of delivery drones, ensuring safe and efficient operations.
• Implement simulations and testing frameworks to validate the performance and reliability of path planning algorithms.
• Improve performance, reliability, scalability, and security for our drone backend systems, with a particular emphasis on ensuring safe and compliant drone operations.
• Introduce tools and best practices to accelerate our drone development process and ensure adherence to aviation regulations.

Requirements

• B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Robotics, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
• 6+ years of industry experience as a software engineer, with a focus on backend systems, robotics, or autonomous systems.
• Strong experience in developing and implementing algorithms for path planning.
• Experience with simulations and testing frameworks for robotics or autonomous systems.
• Experience with either Kotlin, or C++.
• Ability to improve efficiency, scalability, and stability of distributed systems, especially in a real-time operational context.
• Experience with service-oriented architecture, writing REST APIs, unit testing, and architectural design.
• Understanding of networking and communication protocols relevant to robotics and IoT (e.g., TCP/IP, UDP, MQTT).
• Experience with SQL or NoSQL databases.
• Familiarity with aviation regulations and safety standards (e.g., FAA Part 107) is a strong plus.

Qualifications

• Nice to Have: Experience with KotlingRPC, Kafka, Redis, Postgres, or Cassandra, AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, ROS (Robot Operating System) or other robotics middleware, Familiarity with geospatial data and mapping technologies (GIS).

Benefits

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).

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.

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).

Pay

I4 $130,600—$192,000 USD
I5 $159,800—$235,000 USD
I6 $193,800—$285,000 USD

Schedule

Not specified

Location

Remote jobs associated with an office in NYC only.