About the job
As an Associate Manager, Strategy & Operations on our AI Research Lab, 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. You will help define and scale the Lab’s most important bets while building the foundations that enable AI applications to compound over time.
Responsibilities
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, establishing performance thresholds, and localizing metrics.
Driving AI adoption across DoorDash by enabling non-technical teams with enterprise tools, workflows, and experimentation sandboxes.
Building scalable AI foundations, including evaluation datasets, guardrails, monitoring systems, and strategies for custom foundation models.
Operationalizing frontier technologies from external partners, 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
Minimum
You have a Bachelor’s degree or higher
You have 3+ years of experience in consulting, strategy, or operations
Your expert communication 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
Must be comfortable regularly exercising discretion and independent judgment in performing job duties
Preferred
high-growth/early-stage startup or entrepreneurial experience is a big plus