Senior Software Engineer, Spark Platform

About the Team The Spark Platform team owns and operates DoorDash's Apache Spark ecosystem — the execution runtime, remote shuffle service, cluster scheduler, and reliability tooling that powers the company's data, analytics, and ML workloads. We run Spark across the company at significant scale and continue to expand the workloads, capabilities, and consumer base we serve. Orchestrating and operating thousands of Spark cluster deployments is a complex distributed system problem which the team invests heavily in runtime optimization, systems architecture, multi-tenant scheduling, and end-user tooling. About the Role As a Senior Software Engineer on Spark Platform, you will set the technical direction for our in-house Spark deployment and shape the architecture that will run DoorDash's data, analytics, and ML compute for the next five years and beyond. You will own the deep, cross-cutting problems that span the runtime, the shuffle service, the scheduler, and the overall service reliability — making the architectural calls that compound across the platform's lifetime. You will partner with the Engineering Manager on technical roadmap, hiring, and team shape, and act as the senior technical voice in cross-team partnerships with Data Engineering, ML Platform, and product engineering teams that depend on the platform. You must be located in San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Seattle, or New York City for this hybrid position. You will report into the Engineering Manager on our Spark Platform team. You're excited about this opportunity because you will… Set the multi-year technical direction for an in-house Spark-on-Kubernetes platform — runtime, shuffle, scheduler, reliability — and make the architectural calls that compound for years. Own the deepest distributed-systems problems on the team: shuffle architecture, multi-tenant scheduling, runtime performance, and the failure modes that only show up at scale. Partner with the Engineering Manager on technical roadmap, hiring, interview design, and team shape as the team continues to grow. Uplevel the rest of the team through design reviews, mentorship, and raising the bar on what we ship. Represent Spark Platform in cross-team architecture forums and shape how data, analytics, and ML workloads land on the platform. We're excited about you because… B.S., M.S., or PhD in Computer Science or equivalent. 6+ years of industry experience designing and operating distributed systems at scale. Deep, hands-on experience with Apache Spark — internals, query execution, shuffle, the executor/driver model — at platform scale on Amazon EMR, Databricks, or an in-house deployment, with a focus on platform operations (runtime upgrades, cluster lifecycle, shuffle, observability, multi-tenant scheduling) rather than authoring individual Spark jobs. Production experience with one or more of: remote/external shuffle systems (Celeborn, Magnet, Cosco, or similar), batch/big-data schedulers (YuniKorn, Volcano, Kueue, or the Spark-on-Kubernetes operator), or the observability and SRE patterns that make distributed compute platforms operable. Strong fluency operating workloads on Kubernetes in production — operator patterns, executor pod lifecycle, network topology, and the multi-tenant failure modes that show up at scale. Familiarity with data lake table formats such as Apache Iceberg or Delta Lake, and with the query and SQL engines that read them. Track record of acting as a technical leader on a platform team — setting direction, mentoring, and partnering with management on roadmap and hiring. Professional experience with Scala, Java, Python, or Go; strong SQL. You are located or willing to relocate to the Bay Area, Seattle, or NYC. Notice to Applicants for Jobs Located in NYC or Remote Jobs Associated With Office in NYC Only We use Covey as part of our hiring and/or promotional process for jobs in NYC and certain features may qualify it as an AEDT in NYC. As part of the hiring and/or promotion process, we provide Covey with job requirements and candidate submitted applications. We began using Covey Scout for Inbound from August 21, 2023, through December 21, 2023, and resumed using Covey Scout for Inbound again on June 29, 2024. The Covey tool has been reviewed by an independent auditor. Results of the audit may be viewed here: Covey Compensation The successful candidate's starting pay will fall within the pay range listed below and is determined based on job-related factors including, but not limited to, skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. Base salary is localized according to an employee’s work location. Ranges are market-dependent and may be modified in the future. In addition to base salary, the compensation for this role includes opportunities for equity grants. Talk to your recruiter for more information. DoorDash cares about you and your overall well-being. That’s why we offer a comprehensive benefits package to all regular employees, which includes a 401(k) plan with employer matching, 16 weeks of paid parental leave, wellness benefits, commuter benefits match, paid time off and paid sick leave in compliance with applicable laws (e.g. Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Act). DoorDash also offers medical, dental, and vision benefits, 11 paid holidays, disability and basic life insurance, family-forming assistance, and a mental health program, among others. To learn more about our benefits, visit our careers page here . See below for paid time off details: For salaried roles: flexible paid time off/vacation, plus 80 hours of paid sick time per year. For hourly roles: vacation accrued at about 1 hour for every 25.97 hours worked (e.g. about 6.7 hours/month if working 40 hours/week; about 3.4 hours/month if working 20 hours/week), and paid sick time accrued at 1 hour for every 30 hours worked (e.g. about 5.8 hours/month if working 40 hours/week; about 2.9 hours/month if working 20 hours/week). The national base pay ranges for this position within the United States, including Illinois and Colorado. I4 $130,600 — $192,000 USD I5 $159,800 — $235,000 USD I6 $193,800 — $285,000 USD About DoorDash At DoorDash, our mission to empower local economies shapes how our team members move quickly, learn, and reiterate in order to make impactful decisions that display empathy for our range of users—from Dashers to merchant partners to consumers. We are a technology and logistics company that started by enabling door-to-door delivery, and we are looking for team members who can help us go from a company that is known as the place you order food to a company that people turn to for any and all goods. DoorDash is growing rapidly and changing constantly, which gives our team members the opportunity to share their unique perspectives, solve new challenges, and own their careers. We're committed to supporting employees’ happiness, healthiness, and overall well-being by providing comprehensive benefits and perks including premium healthcare, wellness expense reimbursement, paid parental leave and more. Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion We’re committed to growing and empowering a more inclusive community within our company, industry, and cities. That’s why we hire and cultivate diverse teams of people from all backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. We believe that true innovation happens when everyone has room at the table and the tools, resources, and opportunity to excel. Statement of Non-Discrimination: In keeping with our beliefs and goals, no employee or applicant will face discrimination or harassment based on: race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, age, gender, marital/domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability status, or veteran status. Above and beyond discrimination and harassment based on “protected categories,” we also strive to prevent other subtler forms of inappropriate behavior (i.e., stereotyping) from ever g