Engineering Manager, Storage

As the Engineering Manager, Storage at DoorDash, your main responsibilities include leading a team of engineers in optimizing and building distributed storage solutions, making architectural decisions for high-performance NoSQL databases, and collaborating cross-functionally to ensure data consistency and reliability.

Candidates for the Engineering Manager, Storage role at DoorDash should possess over five years of backend engineering experience, along with at least two years in a leadership role. Hands-on experience with large-scale databases like CockroachDB and Cassandra is paramount.

The culture within the Storage team at DoorDash is collaborative and diverse, focused on fostering innovation and inclusivity. As an Engineering Manager, you will influence this culture by mentoring engineers and driving architectural excellence.

The Engineering Manager, Storage plays a critical role in supporting DoorDash's mission by building scalable and efficient storage systems that enable seamless product experiences. Your team's work will directly empower engineers across the organization.

At DoorDash, the Engineering Manager, Storage has ample growth opportunities through mentorship programs, team development initiatives, and involvement in shaping storage technologies, ensuring continuous personal and professional advancement.

In your answer, highlight specific projects or roles where you worked with distributed storage, detailing the technologies used and your contributions toward improving performance or reliability.

Discuss your approach to leadership, emphasizing mentorship, open communication, and fostering an inclusive team dynamic. Provide examples of past successes in building team morale and productivity.

Explain your criteria for making architectural decisions, such as balancing performance, scalability, and maintainability. Provide specific scenarios where your decisions led to significant enhancements.

Discuss methodologies like Agile or Scrum that you have used, emphasizing how you tailor these methodologies to fit the needs of your team and projects, ensuring timely delivery and quality.

Provide strategies you employ for conflict resolution, focusing on direct communication, mediation, and finding common ground, backed by an example illustrating a successful resolution in the past.

Share your philosophy on mentorship, detailing how you identify growth opportunities for junior engineers and guide them through challenges, enhancing their skills and confidence.

Discuss methods you've implemented for maintaining high availability, such as automated monitoring, redundancy, and agile response to incidents to minimize system downtime.

Provide examples of innovative solutions you've developed or contributed to, highlighting the impact these innovations had on system performance or team efficiency.

Discuss your strategies for staying current, including attending conferences, participating in online communities, and reading industry publications that cover storage technologies.

Articulate your vision for your career in technology leadership, focusing on how you hope to influence your team's growth, contribute to the organization’s objectives, and advance the field of engineering.