AI Research Fellowship, (Summer and Fall 2026)
DoorDash USASan Francisco, California, United States · Posted 4 months agoDescription
About the Team
The DoorDash Research Fellowship is a 3-month program (extendable to 6 months) looking for Summer and Fall 2026 cohorts, for researchers and engineers who want to work on the hardest applied ML and AI problems in local commerce. Fellows are given the resources, autonomy, and access to real-world operational data needed to pursue ambitious research directions — with the goal of producing work that influences both the field and how DoorDash operates at scale.
This program is modeled on the best external research fellowships: fellows are treated as independent researchers, not as junior employees on a product team. You pick the problem (within a set of priority areas), you own the direction, and you publish or ship the outcome.
You’re excited about this opportunity because you will receive…
- Dedicated compute allocation sized to the research agenda — GPU clusters for training and inference budgets for experimentation
- Full access to DoorDash's research infrastructure — our internal RL stack, training and evaluation pipelines, RL environments built on real operational systems, agent evaluation harnesses, and the tooling our own research teams use day-to-day. Fellows are first-class users, not sandboxed visitors.
- Access to DoorDash operational data — real-world datasets spanning logistics, merchant operations, consumer behavior, and marketplace dynamics, under appropriate data governance
- Research mentorship from senior researchers and engineering leaders at DoorDash, plus a named research sponsor for each fellow who meets with you weekly and is accountable for unblocking your work
- Speaker series featuring leading researchers and practitioners from academia and industry — faculty from top ML programs, research leads from frontier AI labs, and senior operators from across tech. Fellows get dedicated 1:1 time with speakers when possible.
- A cohort of fellows working alongside you — a small, tight-knit group of researchers tackling different problems but sharing ideas, drafts, and reading groups. The community extends to DoorDash research alumni and the broader fellowship network.
- Publication support — fellows are encouraged to publish at top venues (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, KDD, etc.) and DoorDash will support the legal and review process
- Relocation support, housing stipend, and competitive pay
Structure
- Kickoff (2 weeks, in-person in SF): Onboarding, scoping the research agenda with your sponsor, meeting teams across Research, ML Platform, and relevant product orgs
- Core research period (~10 weeks, hybrid from SF DoorDash office): Focused research work with regular check-ins, internal talks, and working sessions. Extension to 6 months decided at the midpoint based on research progress and mutual fit.
- Closeout: Final write-up, internal presentation, and publication or productionization path
Priority Research Areas
Fellows are welcome to propose their own direction, but we are particularly interested in work across:
- Reinforcement learning environments for real-world operations — building high-fidelity simulators and training environments from operational data, including the tradeoffs between real-data fidelity and synthetic generalization
- Agentic systems for logistics and local commerce — long-horizon planning, tool use, and evaluation methodologies for agents operating in physical-world marketplaces
- Foundation models for marketplace dynamics — forecasting, pricing, matching, and personalization at marketplace scale
- Evaluation and measurement — new benchmarks and evaluation methods for ML systems deployed in messy, real-world operational settings
- Multimodal understanding — vision, speech, and language applied to merchant catalogs, operations, and consumer interfaces
We’re excited about you because…
- You’re a researcher with a strong track record — PhD candidates (rising 4th year or beyond), recent PhDs, or independent researchers with published work at top ML venues or equivalent demonstrated output
- You’re an engineer with deep research instincts who have shipped ambitious ML or systems work and want dedicated time to pursue a research direction
- You can operate independently — set a research agenda, scope it, and execute without heavy supervision
- You have strong written and verbal communication; comfort presenting work to mixed research and engineering audiences
We are not looking for specific years of experience or specific degrees. Exceptional candidates from non-traditional backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply.
Compensation
The fellowship is 12 weeks long with potential opportunity for extension. The fellow’s starting pay will fall within the monthly pay range listed below and is determined based on job-related factors including education, work location, and market conditions.
Ranges are market-dependent and may be modified in the future. In addition to base pay, fellows are eligible for both a housing stipend and relocation stipend. DoorDash cares about you and your overall well-being. That’s why we offer our fellows a wellness reimbursement benefit, access to an employee assistance program, in-office lunch credits and more!
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.
Similar jobs
Est. 251,400 USD
About the Role DoorDash is building an AI Research org from the ground up, and we're hiring our founding researchers. This is not a role inside an existing team — it's a role that defines what the team becomes. You'll ha…
Est. 251,400 USD
About the Team DoorDash’s mission is to empower local economies. In the Applied AI srole, you will be at the absolute forefront of agentic technology, building sophisticated AI agents end-to-end to help businesses grow,…
Est. 139,500 USD
About the Team AI Research Lab is one of DoorDash’s frontier innovation hubs, focused on building the foundation for an AI-native future across our three core audiences: consumers, merchants, and dashers. As AI capabilit…
Est. 299,900 USD
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 discov…
Est. 299,900 USD
About the Team The Consumer Engineering Team is responsible for helping consumers discover and order everything they love globally. Our work spans the entire consumer journey across homepage, search, store discovery, ite…
Est. 107,500 USD
About the Team DoorDash is looking for an analytical and entrepreneurial operator to join our US Marketplace Growth team that is responsible for accelerating new growth bets, most notably with College students and Gen Z.…
Est. 169,400 USD
About the Team DoorDash Drive powers deliveries placed through merchants' own channels—including their websites, mobile apps, and phone orders—using DoorDash's logistics network. The Drive Machine Learning team builds th…
Est. 176,400 USD
About the Team & the Role DoorDash’s mission is to grow and empower local economies. By building intelligent, last-mile delivery technology for local cities, DoorDash connects people with the local businesses they ca…
Est. 107,500 USD
About the Team The New Verticals team is building the future of local commerce through expanding our product offerings on our marketplace platform. We launched in 2020 and have since then built world-class operations to…
Est. 145,150 USD
About the Team The Analytics Engineering team at DoorDash is embedded within the Analytics and Data Engineering Orgs, and is responsible for building internal data products that scale decision-making across business team…
Est. 107,500 USD
About the Team Our New Verticals team launched in 2020 with the purpose of delighting our customers and empowering local communities outside of just restaurants. Since then, we’ve launched Grocery, Convenience, Alcohol,…
Est. 130,200 USD
About the Team New Verticals launched in 2020 to take the DoorDash marketplace beyond restaurants: it now spans 100,000+ grocery, convenience, alcohol, retail, and DashMart stores and has made DoorDash the #1 third-party…
Est. 251,400 USD
About the Team DoorDash is building the next generation of causal decisioning systems for New Verticals: grocery, convenience, retail, alcohol, pets, flowers, and other emerging categories. These businesses operate in hi…
Est. 251,400 USD
About the Team DoorDash is building the next generation of causal decisioning systems for New Verticals: grocery, convenience, retail, alcohol, pets, flowers, and other emerging categories. These businesses operate in hi…
Est. 107,500 USD
About the Team DoorDash is looking for a Strategy & Operations Senior Associate to help grow DashPass, DoorDash’s subscription business. We are seeking someone to join our team who can generate insights across our in…
Est. 109,200 USD
About the Team The Commercial Operations team is part of the Sales Strategy and Operations organization and plays a unique role in accelerating deal velocity while maintaining deal accuracy and compliance. We partner clo…
Est. 155,400 USD
About the Team Our Account Development Strategy & Operations team is responsible for designing, building, and running a world-class sales organization to successfully grow our merchants through leading product soluti…
Est. 239,400 USD
About the Team Our mission is to enable DoorDash Backend engineers across our three engineering excellence pillars: Quality, Velocity and Efficiency. We provide the framework-level solutions which enable engineers to bui…
Est. 92,700 USD
About the Team The New Verticals team is building the future of local commerce through expanding our product offerings on our marketplace platform. We launched New Verticals in 2020 and have since built a world-class del…
Est. 136,700 USD
About the Team The New Verticals Business Development team is a small, fast-paced, high-performing group responsible for establishing, managing and scaling new lines of business at DoorDash in the retail and logistics sp…
Est. 331,800 USD
About the Team DoorDash is seeking a seasoned Engineering Director to lead our Logistics Org. You’ll lead a multi-disciplinary organization of 100+ engineers (Backend, Mobile, Machine Learning, and Operations Research) t…
Est. 92,500 USD
About the Team Our New Verticals team launched in 2020 with the purpose of delighting our customers and empowering local communities outside of just restaurants. Since then, we’ve launched Grocery, Convenience, Alcohol,…
Est. 119,000 USD
About the Team DoorDash's largest restaurant partners — brands operating thousands of locations — run on integrations with our platform. Our team owns the technical relationship with these partners end to end. Not a quar…
Est. 315,000 USD
About the Team The Commerce Platform team builds products that help merchants grow, operate, and monetize their business with DoorDash. Our portfolio spans 0→1 bets, early-stage products, and rapidly scaling offerings, w…
Est. 141,550 USD
About the Team DoorDash is looking for a Team Lead to join the Enterprise team that will help lead a team of Franchise Account Executives execute the strategy and project planning to grow our Drive business. The DoorDash…
Est. 107,500 USD
About the Team On the Merchant Strategy & Operations team, our mission is to have best-in-class restaurant selection for Consumers and build products and services for our Merchants to grow their businesses profitably…
Est. 80,340 USD
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. If you have a passion for applying robotics solutions in a servic…
Est. 121,800 USD
About the Team DoorDash is scaling as a global organization, and we are hiring an Executive Assistant to partner with leaders at DoorDash. As operators and marketers, we partner with your favorite restaurants and local m…
Est. 92,700 USD
About the Team New Verticals is an exciting team at DoorDash that is building and scaling new ways to delight our customers beyond restaurant deliveries (e.g., Grocery, Convenience, Alcohol, Retail). Our Central Ops team…
Est. 168,000 USD
About the Team At DoorDash, we believe that our merchants are the driving force behind our marketplace. Our Partner Integrations team is dedicated to their success, working to build cutting-edge technology services that…