Product Manager Airspace & Autonomy - DoorDash Air

DoorDash USA•San Francisco, CA

7h•$193,800 - $285,000

About The Position

DoorDash Air is building drone delivery capabilities, while DoorDash Labs develops automation and robotics solutions for last-mile logistics. The Product Manager Airspace & Autonomy owns end-to-end product strategy for the software, services, autonomy, perception, human interfaces, and related capabilities needed to deploy autonomous drone delivery at scale. The role connects DoorDash’s order and logistics platform with aircraft, autonomy systems, mission-planning services, UTM capabilities, fleet-management tools, and operator workflows. It defines how orders progress from merchant readiness through dispatch, airspace validation, autonomous flight, delivery, and completion. The product manager sets vision and priorities, shapes platform architecture and roadmaps, makes technical and product tradeoffs, and aligns cross-functional teams around an integrated drone delivery system and operational scale. The position leads product direction across autonomy, aviation software, services, hardware, systems engineering, flight operations, UTM, safety, regulatory, data, and DoorDash platform teams. It works with the Head of UTM and senior Engineering and Operations leaders on roadmap, system boundaries, build-versus-partner decisions, and investments tied to operational scale and unit economics. The role also coaches and mentors engineers and represents DoorDash in standards-development activities, promoting technical standards needed for regulatory compliance in the U.S. and abroad.

Requirements

10+ years of product management, technical product leadership, systems leadership, or related experience, including significant responsibility for complex software or cyber-physical platforms.
5+ years of experience in autonomous systems, robotics, UAS, aviation technology, safety-critical systems, or another highly regulated real-world operating environment.
Demonstrated track record taking technically complex products from early concept or prototype through validation, deployment, and operational scale.
Experience owning products spanning multiple technology-stack layers, including embedded or vehicle software, cloud services, APIs, data infrastructure, operational applications, and hardware integration.
Strong technical fluency in autonomous-system concepts such as mission planning, path planning, motion planning, perception, localization, guidance and control, behavior management, contingency handling, simulation, telemetry, and command and control.
Experience defining product strategy and architecture for distributed, real-time, or mission-critical systems where reliability, safety, and operational performance are fundamental product requirements.
Working knowledge of UTM, airspace-management systems, geospatial data, flight-planning services, operational volumes, conformance monitoring, and airspace interoperability.
Experience operating within or building technology for FAA-regulated environments, including familiarity with any combination of National Airspace System hardware, software, and procedures; Part 107, Part 135, Part 108, or Part 146; BVLOS operating approvals; UTM or USS services; and evolving autonomous-flight regulations.
Experience designing or scaling human-supervised autonomy, remote operations, multi-vehicle systems, fleet orchestration, or m:N operating models.
Deep credibility in standards-development organizations and ability to promote best practices for technical and regulatory compliance.

Responsibilities

Own end-to-end product strategy for DoorDash Air’s safety-critical software, services, and platform infrastructure; define its vision, platform architecture, capability roadmap, and investment priorities.
Integrate drone delivery into the DoorDash marketplace, including merchant preparation, order readiness, dispatch timing, routing, customer promises, delivery-zone eligibility, and fulfillment decisions in relation to aircraft, weather, airspace, and operational constraints.
Lead the autonomy product roadmap across mission planning, autonomous path and motion planning, contingency behaviors, rerouting, detect-and-avoid integration, vehicle health, payload handling, landing and delivery behaviors, and remote assistance.
Define the roadmap for moving from one operator supervising one aircraft toward increasingly autonomous multi-aircraft operations, including exception management, alert prioritization, task allocation, fleet orchestration, remote intervention, and human-autonomy interfaces.
Define the data strategy for geospatial, terrain, obstacle, weather, airspace, population-risk, connectivity, landing-zone, and operational data, determining what to build, license, source through partners, or generate through the fleet.
Lead product requirements for UTM and airspace-management capabilities, including operational-volume generation, strategic and tactical deconfliction, dynamic rerouting, airspace authorization, constraint management, conformance monitoring, and interoperability.
Champion standards compliance, including ASTM F3201, F3548, and F3411, and maintain an active leadership role in ASTM standards-development activities on behalf of DoorDash.
Translate Part 135 operating requirements, BVLOS approvals, safety cases, operational limitations, and emerging Part 108 concepts into reusable software, data, workflow, auditability, and configuration-management capabilities.
Evaluate technology providers, data sources, autonomy components, and infrastructure partners based on strategic differentiation, integration complexity, operational risk, economics, and time to market.
Establish system-level instrumentation and KPIs for delivery success, order-to-dispatch time, route efficiency, intervention frequency, operator-to-aircraft ratio, aircraft utilization, mission completion, system availability, regulatory conformance, and cost per delivery.
Develop business cases and sequencing recommendations that balance safety, customer experience, operational scalability, engineering effort, deployment speed, and long-term unit economics.
Identify required product, systems, autonomy, platform, data, hardware, test, and operational capabilities; partner with functional leaders to define roles, close talent gaps, and build an organization able to scale.
Work closely with the Head of UTM and senior Engineering and Operations leaders to establish the product roadmap, clarify system boundaries, make build-versus-partner decisions, and align technical investment with scale and unit economics.
Coach and mentor engineers so they understand how their work contributes to the broader vision and supports safe, scalable drone delivery operations.
Set product vision and priorities, make informed technical and product tradeoffs, and hold cross-functional teams accountable for delivering an integrated drone delivery system.