How William Ma fast-tracked his engineering career at DoorDash

Fresh out of college in 2018, William Ma had big ambitions for his first job. He wanted to join a company that had big upside, a proven team culture, and he wanted to be somewhere he could make an impact early on. After a slew of internships at various tech companies, William landed as a software engineer at DoorDash on the Drive team, which focuses on providing delivery as a service, allowing merchants to request dashers to deliver their goods.

“I had worked with a few people at my internships who had joined DoorDash and they talked about the team culture and how much of an impact I could make,” William said. “I thought that was a great opportunity for me to be focused and really see fast growth in my career.”

Shortly into his tenure, William joined six other engineers on the Drive team and relished the opportunity to take ownership of projects, both large and small. 

“I earned the trust of my team in that first year. I was thrown into really impactful work early on, learned while I was building, and gained more experience than anywhere I’d worked before. The features we built in other companies were much smaller in scope than the things I’ve done here. Here, you get a better understanding of how the system works, how to improve processes, and you gain huge learning opportunities. With the growth and development of Drive, I’ve picked up many skills, led multiple projects, and worked with a tight-knit group to push out features as fast as possible. And the work hasn’t really stopped as our team has grown to 60 engineers over the last four years.”
_{- William Ma, Software Engineer}

The work is fast-moving for William and his team. There’s an urgency to build new products, get them out, test, and improve the next iteration. As a veteran at DoorDash, William has embraced the ability to balance and own his work-life integration. 

“As someone who’s been here for a bit, I see it as a little bit of a wave pattern. We’re encouraged by our managers and leadership to take the time we need. There’s also an understanding of when it’s crunch time and when we need to launch everything,” William said. “I definitely think there’s support to take time away from work and avoid suffering from burnout.”

Over the years, the work has become more distributed across the country as the Drive team has grown and embraced the benefits of our Flexible Work model. 

“For the most part, our work is done remotely. So the times when we go into the office, we’re typically gathering for an event, setting aside dedicated time for our teams to connect, or really just spending time in-person when others are also going into the office as well,” William said. “The workplace model has been really good for me. It’s allowed me to travel a little, doing month-long stints in different states or cities. I’ve worked in Seattle, in Denver, and done many things I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do if we were required to be in the office a dedicated amount of time each week.”

Across engineering and the business, DoorDash is continuing to hire in many areas. From William’s experiences, he’s had a first-hand look at what success looks like at DoorDash.

“I think having ownership in your career and really caring about the product are the biggest things,” said William. “For me, I really enjoy the product direction DoorDash is taking. They make a lot of sense, and I believe that the things we are working on will have a lot of success. We know there will be times where we find ourselves working extra hours to hit our deadlines, and other times where we will have to choose a faster option. However, the upside is that there are so many opportunities to grow here with plenty of projects needing owners.”

If you’re ready for a new challenge and want to help our international business grow, click here to learn about job opportunities on DoorDash's engineering team.