The interview process at DoorDash is challenging, especially for the engineering manager role, where candidates are expected to have strong leadership and technical know-how.
The good news is that the right preparation can make a big difference and help you land a job as a DoorDash engineering manager.
To help you get there, we’ve gathered all the resources you need to ace your interviews: reports from real DoorDash candidates and information from official DoorDash sources.
By the end, you’ll know exactly what to expect and how to approach each interview round with confidence.
Here’s an overview of what we’ll cover:
Without further ado, let’s get into it!
1. Role and Salary↑
Before we cover your engineering manager interviews at Doordash, let’s take a quick look at the role itself.
1.1 What does a DoorDash Engineering Manager do?
As an engineering manager at DoorDash, you’ll lead a team of engineers while driving high-impact projects. Your role combines technical leadership, people management, and strategic execution to build and scale products that serve millions of users.
You’ll work closely with cross-functional teams in product, design, and operations to ensure technical decisions align with business goals. At the same time, you’ll mentor engineers, improve processes, and maintain high engineering standards.
Depending on your experience, expertise, and interests, you could be assigned to different verticals, including backend, data science and machine learning, mobile, and web.
But no matter your domain, as a DoorDash engineering manager, you will be expected to:
- Partner with cross-functional stakeholders to define the roadmap and vision for your team.
- Lead and mentor engineers, empowering them through delegation and maintaining high engineering standards.
- Inspire teams with a strong technical vision and ensure the alignment needed for execution.
In addition to these responsibilities, managerial positions at DoorDash are founded on three core pillars that you, as a leader, are expected to embody in your daily work:
- Business Outcome – EMs drive impact by ensuring engineering efforts support the company’s strategic goals. This includes making technical and product decisions that align with business priorities while ensuring projects are executed efficiently.
- Team Leadership – Strong teams build great products. As an EM, you’ll be responsible for hiring, mentoring, and fostering a collaborative environment where engineers can grow and succeed. You’ll also work across teams to build alignment and ensure smooth execution.
- Engineering Excellence – DoorDash emphasizes quality, velocity, and efficiency in the execution of projects. That means delivering reliable, scalable, and high-performing software while ensuring teams can iterate quickly and make the best use of resources.
What skills are required to be a DoorDash engineering manager?
An analysis of engineering manager job offers at DoorDash shows that it usually asks for three basic requirements: a bachelor's degree (typically in computer science or a related field), more than seven years of industry experience, and at least two years of management experience.
1.2 How much does a DoorDash Engineering Manager make?
DoorDash EMs are highly compensated. According to Glassdoor, they make 46% more than the average engineering manager in the U.S.
Like most tech companies, compensation at DoorDash depends on level and location.
Location: Salaries are adjusted for cost of living. For example, an M1 EM at DoorDash in the U.S. earns significantly more than an M2 EM in India.
Level: Both base salary and total compensation go up with each EM level.
Here’s the average salary and compensation for DoorDash software engineering managers, based on reported data from Levels.fyi. Keep in mind that compensation may vary depending on the specific engineering manager role, as different EM positions (e.g., infrastructure, data, or platform) may have different salary structures.
While you may already know which level you are applying for, it’s always a good idea to confirm with your recruiter. They can clarify what level you’re being considered for and what expectations come with it.
Ultimately, your interview performance determines your level and offer package. To improve your chances, consider working with one of our expert coaches.
Our team includes ex-interviewers from Meta, Uber, Google, and other top tech companies who can help refine your responses and give you the best shot at securing a top offer.
And remember, compensation is always negotiable. So, if you do get an offer, don't hesitate to push for better terms. IGotAnOffer’s salary negotiation coaches can provide expert guidance to help you increase your total compensation.
2. DoorDash engineering manager interview process and timeline↑
2.1 What interviews to expect
What’s the DoorDash engineering manager interview process and timeline? It usually takes between two to six weeks and follows the steps below:
- Resume screen
- Recruiter phone screen
- “Onsite” virtual interviews
- System design interview
- Behavioral interviews
Let’s take a look at each step in more detail.
2.1.1 Resume screen
First, recruiters will look at your resume and assess if your experience matches the open position. This is the most competitive part of your DoorDash application process, as thousands of candidates do not make it past this stage.
If you have yet to land an interview, now is the time to improve your resume to increase your chances of standing out in a competitive pool.
You can use this engineering manager resume guide to help tailor your resume to the position you’re targeting.
And if you’re looking for expert feedback, you can also get input on your engineering manager resume from one of our ex-FAANG recruiters, who will cover what achievements to focus on (or ignore), how to fine-tune your bullet points, and more.
2.1.2 Recruiter phone screen
In most cases, your interview process with DoorDash will start with a 30-minute call with a recruiter. They’ll ask about your background, past work experience, and level expectations while sharing details about the company.
This call is your opportunity to highlight why you're a strong fit for the role, so be prepared to discuss your experience and qualifications.
You should expect typical behavioral and resume questions like, "Tell me about yourself", "Why DoorDash?", or "Tell me about your current day-to-day as an engineering manager."
You’ll also want to be prepared to answer questions related to DoorDash’s three management pillars: business outcome, team, and engineering excellence.
Think of it as an elevator pitch to introduce yourself and show why you’d be a great fit for DoorDash. It helps to prepare a short intro (2 to 3 minutes max) to prevent you from going off track.
If you get past this first HR screen, the recruiter will then endorse you to the next rounds of interviews. They’ll usually let you know who you’ll be speaking with, what types of interviews to expect, and share resources to help you prepare.
2.1.3 Virtual “Onsite” interviews
Now comes the most important part of the interview process. DoorDash refers to these as "onsite virtual interviews,” but don’t get confused. These interviews are fully remote and consist of two sessions:
- A system design interview
- A behavioral interview
Some candidates on Glassdoor report that these sessions are often scheduled back-to-back, each lasting up to an hour. A few candidates have also mentioned being tested on coding, but this appears to be extremely rare, so we don’t recommend spending too much time preparing in that area.
You'll mostly be interviewed by current engineering managers, but depending on the role, you might also meet with the hiring manager or other senior leaders.
As an additional note, interviewers at DoorDash tend to ask a lot of follow-up questions to better understand your thought process, so try to condition yourself mentally for this style of interview.
3. Example questions↑
As mentioned above, DoorDash’s engineering manager interviews typically have two main parts. Below, we’ll break down each and provide example questions you can expect.
- Leadership interviews, where you’ll answer questions about your experience, how you handle challenges, and how you work with teams. Interviewers may also ask about your approach to hiring and developing talent.
- System design interviews, where you’ll be tested on your technical knowledge, problem-solving skills, and your understanding of architecture and scaling.
In this section, we’ll break down the two types of interviews you’ll go through at DoorDash and give you a better idea of what kinds of questions to expect. We’ll also throw in a few example questions you can practice with.
If you want more practice, check out our list of 65 common engineering manager interview questions.
Let's dive into the most common types of questions you'll encounter.
3.1 System design
The system design round will assess your ability to architect a system at a high level, and you will be asked to focus on broad design decisions.
According to DoorDash, it is recommended that you take the time to thoroughly explore the problem. Ask clarifying questions about both technical and functional requirements, and identify any constraints that may exist for the problem.
You’ll also want to ask about business and engineering requirements to ensure you and your interviewer are on the same page. “We are not looking for one specific answer and asking clarifying questions will help you arrive at one of many valid solutions,” DoorDash Software Engineer Roman Onufryk says.
In addition to that, interviewers expect candidates to get to a high level of design within the first 20-25 minutes. Start with a high-level overview of your system, then outline the components you think you need for your solution.
“We’re looking for a structured thought process that breaks down the problem piece by piece. Make sure to be interactive with your interviewer by talking them through your design, providing sufficient details to continue the conversation but not so much to where you run out of time,” DoorDash Software Engineer Roman Laura Rodriguez says.
After you’ve outlined your design, go back and expand on the finer details. A few things to keep in mind according to DoorDash:
- How can you tell if the system is working?
- Are there any bottlenecks in the design?
- How do the components work together?
- How will the system scale?
Finally, ensure you have a complete design solution, and conduct some quantitative analysis or rough calculations where possible (remember not to make assumptions here).
During the interview, you will have access to a virtual whiteboard. Use it to sketch out calculations and diagrams as you create your solution. This will help to clearly illustrate your thought process, which is what the interviewers are looking for.
In most cases, you will be given questions tailored to your background. For example, if you’ve worked on high-scale delivery systems, they might ask you to design a system for optimizing DoorDash’s logistics.
But that won’t always be the case, so be prepared to design a variety of systems at a high level, even if they’re outside your direct experience.
Here are some example system design questions you can practice with. If you want more, check out our list of 31 system design interview questions.
Example “Design X” system design questions asked at DoorDash EM interviews
- Design a specific feature on DoorDash
- Design a feature that rewards users when leaving a review on DoorDash
- Design a system to handle accepting donations for a charity and being able to return a charitable gift receipt to the donor
You should also be prepared to answer follow-up questions, such as those about overcoming potential bottlenecks, evaluating the effectiveness of your system, and testing your system under different loads.
3.2 Leadership interviews
Doordash wants to learn how you've guided teams to deliver products, led high-impact initiatives, and helped grow and maintain an engineering organization. Because of this, you can expect a heavy focus on leadership questions during your interviews.
Topics could include (but are not limited to): how you partner with recruiting, how you build teams, and how you've grown and mentored employees.
Additionally, the interview will include questions that explore your past experiences to evaluate how you handle challenges and make decisions. These questions typically fall into three main categories:
- Culture fit questions. DoorDash operates in a fast-paced, results-driven environment, and interviewers will want to understand your motivation for the role and whether your working style aligns with the company’s culture.
- Team building and teaching questions. These focus on how you lead, support, and grow your team. You’ll likely be asked about handling performance issues, managing career development, and making hiring decisions under pressure.
- Project management and delivery questions. These assess how you plan, execute, and manage trade-offs to drive successful outcomes. You’ll be asked about handling competing priorities, navigating ambiguity, and ensuring timely delivery under tight deadlines.
Below are sample questions we gathered from actual Glassdoor reviews, along with similar questions from interviews at Google, Uber, and Meta that are relevant to this role.
Example leadership questions asked in DoorDash EM interviews
Culture fit
- Tell me about yourself (Meta)
- Why are you leaving your current job? (Meta)
- Why this company? (Uber)
- Tell me about a mistake you made and the lesson you learned from it (Uber)
- When was the last time you did something innovative? (Uber)
- Describe something you have achieved and how you did it (Meta)
Team building and teaching
- Have you ever had to fire someone?
- Tell me about a time you handled a poor performer
- Say you have an underperforming employee. If your manager told you to ignore them and focus on more productive employees, would that bother you? (Uber)
- How do you manage difficult conversations? (Meta)
- How do you manage your team’s career growth? (Meta)
- What would you do with someone who had stayed at the same level for too long? (Meta)
- What was the most difficult situation you've had to deal with as a team/project lead/manager, and how did you deal with it?
Project management and delivery
- Tell me about what you've been working on over the last year (Meta)
- As a manager, how do you handle trade-offs? (Uber)
- What was your contribution to the quantified goal from your team's most recent delivery?
- Tell me about a project that had multiple solutions. How did you decide and arrive at the most optimal solution? (Meta)
- Describe a project in the past that was behind schedule and provide concrete steps that you took to remedy the situation (Meta)
- Describe in detail a project that failed (Meta)
- What is your approach to strategic planning? (Uber)
- How do you manage projects? (Uber)
- How do you handle risks? (Uber)
When preparing for this part of the interview, we suggest reviewing our leadership, people management, and project management guides.
Then we recommend reading Grokking the Engineering Management Leadership Interview by ex-Google EM coach Mark. It’s a valuable resource for answering leadership/behavioral questions that you might encounter at top tech companies such as DoorDash.
4. DoorDash engineering manager Interviewing Tips↑
You might be a fantastic engineering manager, but unfortunately, that won’t necessarily be enough to ace your interviews at DoorDash. Interviewing is a skill in itself, that you need to learn.
Let’s look at some key tips to make sure you approach your interviews in the right way.
4.1 Learn a technique for answering questions
When answering behavioral questions in your DoorDash EM interview, focus on your most relevant achievements and communicate them clearly. One of the best ways to do this is by following a step-by-step method to narrate your experiences.
The STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) is a popular framework because it’s easy to remember. You may have heard of it before.
However, a lot of candidates struggle with telling their stories effectively using this method. Many mix up the task and action steps, or they forget to include key takeaways in the result step, which is especially important when discussing past challenges.
To help with this, we recommend using the IGotAnOffer SPSIL Method (Situation, Problem, Solution, Impact, Lessons). It fixes some of the common mistakes candidates make with STAR and helps you craft clearer, more structured responses.
The IGotAnOffer SPSIL Method
- Situation: Start by giving the necessary context of the situation you were in. Describe your role, the team, the organization, the market, etc. You should only give the minimum context needed to understand the problem and the solution in your story. Nothing more.
- Problem: Outline the problem you and your team were facing.
- Solution: Explain the solution you came up with to solve the problem. Step through how you went about implementing your solution, and focus on your contribution over what the team / larger organization did.
- Impact: Summarize the positive results you achieved for your team, department, and organization. As much as possible, quantify the impact.
- Lessons: Conclude with any lessons you might have learned in the process.
That said, don’t rely too heavily on frameworks. Trust your instincts and adapt as needed during your interview. Frameworks are meant to guide your answer, not limit it, so don’t force your response to fit into one.
4.2 Ask clarifying questions
Many interview questions, especially in system design and project management, can be intentionally broad or vague. Interviewers do this to see how you think through a problem and whether you take the time to gather the right information before jumping into a solution. Make sure you ask questions that can help you clarify and understand the problem.
4.3 Try to set the stage in 30 seconds or less
In the leadership portion of the interview, many candidates spend too much time on their background details instead of getting to the main point. Whether you’re using the SPSIL or STAR method to answer behavioral questions, practice with a timer to make sure you’re including only the essential details.
4.4 Think out loud
When answering technical questions, walk your interviewer through your thought process before designing the system. They may offer hints or guide you in the right direction, so don’t hesitate to verbalize your reasoning as you work through the problem.
4.6 Practice visualizing your system design process
In your system design and architecture interview, interviewers will expect you to visualize your ideas. Practice walking through past projects relevant to DoorDash using diagrams, whether on a whiteboard or a digital tool. They’ll be paying attention to how you organize your thoughts and solve problems creatively.
4.5 Embrace ambiguity
Like most top tech companies, DoorDash interviewers often present open-ended problems to see how well you navigate ambiguity. They’ll want to understand your thought process, explore different options with you, and see how you justify your technical decisions. Be prepared for a discussion and stay open to exploring alternative solutions.
4.6 Treat the interview like a two-way conversation
Remember, the interview isn’t just about DoorDash evaluating you. It’s also your chance to see if the company is the right fit for you.
Come prepared with thoughtful questions to ask at the end of your interview. Interviews can be mentally draining, so having your questions ready beforehand ensures you don’t miss the opportunity to get the information you need.
That said, if something comes up during the conversation, don’t hesitate to ask. Engaging with your interviewer shows genuine interest and helps you make a more informed decision about the role.
4.7 Center on DoorDash’s core values
Study DoorDash’s values and mission statement. When answering leadership questions, share past experiences that reflect DoorDash’s core principles. When discussing system design or strategy, consider how your solution supports the company’s mission and goals.
5. How to prepare↑
Now that you know what questions to expect, let’s talk about how to prepare. DoorDash sets a high bar for its interviews, and some candidates go all in, even taking time off to study.
That’s a bit extreme and definitely not something you need to do, but it shows how much effort some people put into getting ready for these interviews.
We've coached more than 15,000 people for interviews since 2018. Below is our four-step prep plan for DoorDash. If you're preparing for more companies than just DoorDash, then check our non-company-specific engineering manager preparation guide.
5.1 Learn about DoorDash’s culture
Most candidates fail to do this. But before investing tens of hours preparing for an interview at DoorDash, you should make sure it's the right company for you.
DoorDash is prestigious and it's therefore tempting to assume that you should apply, without considering things more carefully. But, it's important to remember that the prestige of a job (by itself) won't make you happy in your day-to-day work. It's the type of work and the people you work with that will.
If you know any engineers who work at DoorDash (or used to), it's a good idea to talk to them to understand the culture. In addition, we would recommend reading the following resources:
- DoorDash’s three management pillars (by DoorDash)
- DoorDash’s mission and values (by DoorDash)
- DoorDash design principles (by DoorDash)
- DoorDash engineering blogs (by DoorDash)
- How to Prepare for a Technical Interview (by DoorDash)
- DoorDash EM interview guide (by DoorDash)
- 5 culture principles in DoorDash design (by Helena Seo)
5.2 Practice by yourself
As we’ve outlined above, you'll need to answer leadership and system design questions in your DoorDash interview. The first step in your preparation should be to review these question types and practice structuring your responses.
Throughout this guide, we’ve recommended several deep-dive articles to help you prepare for each question type. Below is a complete list, along with a few additional resources that may be helpful.
Behavioral and Leadership Questions
- People management: People management questions in tech interviews
- Collaboration and Partnerships: Dealing with conflict, dealing with stakeholders
- General Leadership: Grokking the Engineering Management Leadership Interview, leadership primer for tech interviews
System Design and Architecture
- System design interview guide
- How to answer system design interview questions
- System design fundamentals
- Most-asked system design questions
- Guide to technical retrospectives by Tony Wu (ex-FB)
Project and Program Management
- Program/project management primer
- Engineering manager interview prep
- Program management primer for tech interviews
- Most-asked engineering manager interview questions
Finally, one of the best ways to improve your communication for leadership and system design questions is to interview yourself out loud. It might feel a little strange at first, but playing both the candidate and the interviewer can significantly improve the way you communicate your answers.
Of course, practicing alone can only take you so far. It doesn’t fully prepare you for the pressure of thinking on your feet, handling unexpected follow-up questions, or getting real-time feedback.
That’s why many candidates choose to practice with friends or peers. This helps recreate the interview environment and gives you a chance to refine your answers based on constructive feedback.
5.3 Practice with peers
If you have friends or peers who can do mock interviews with you, that's an option worth trying. It’s free, but be warned, you may come up against the following problems:
- It’s hard to know if the feedback you get is accurate
- They’re unlikely to have insider knowledge of interviews at your target company
- On peer platforms, people often waste your time by not showing up
For those reasons, many candidates skip peer mock interviews and go straight to mock interviews with an expert.
5.4 Practice with experienced engineering manager interviewers
In our experience, practicing real interviews with experts who can give you company-specific feedback makes a huge difference.
Find a DoorDash engineering manager interview coach so you can:
- Test yourself under real interview conditions
- Get accurate feedback from a real expert
- Build your confidence
- Get company-specific insights
- Learn how to tell the right stories, better.
- Save time by focusing your preparation
Landing a job at a big tech company often results in a $50,000 per year or more increase in total compensation. In our experience, three or four coaching sessions worth ~$500 make a significant difference in your ability to land the job. That’s an ROI of 100x!
Click here to book engineer manager mock interviews with experienced ex-FAANG company interviewers.
