Machine Learning Intern (PhD) - Summer 2026

Join DoorDash as a Machine Learning Intern (PhD) - Summer 2026

About the Team

DoorDash is building the world’s most reliable on-demand logistics engine for delivery! We’re looking for machine learning engineer interns to join our fast-growing engineering team to help us develop a 24x7 global infrastructure system that powers DoorDash’s three-sided marketplace of consumers, merchants, and dashers.

About the Role

As a Machine Learning Engineer intern at DoorDash, you’ll work on tackling new challenges in machine learning and artificial intelligence. You’ll conduct research that can be applied across DoorDash engineering teams and engage in external collaborations and mentoring, while also performing research in any of the following areas: Auction, Game theory, Recommender systems, Ranking, AdTech, Computer Vision, Causal Inference, and Big data analytics. We offer a 12-week summer internship program in our San Francisco, Sunnyvale, New York, or Seattle offices.

You’re excited about this opportunity because you will…

• Use cutting-edge research in ML/AI, NLP, RecSys, Ranking, Computer Vision, Causal Inference, Ad Tech, Graph analysis to solve real-world problems across discovery, ads, forecasting, fulfillment and search experiences at DoorDash.
• Contribute and execute on research ideas that can be applied and used to improve product experience at DoorDash.
• Collect, analyze, and synthesize findings from data and use these insights to build relevant ML models.
• Write clean, efficient, and sustainable code

We’re excited about you because you…

• Are working towards a PhD degree in Computer Science, ML, NLP, Statistics, Information Sciences or related field and are graduating between Fall 2026 & Summer 2027
• Have a mastery of at least one systems language (Java, C++, Python, Kotlin, GoLang) or one ML framework (Tensorflow, Pytorch, MLFlow)
• Have experience in research and in solving analytical problems
• Are a strong communicator and team player.
• Have a passion for applied ML and the DoorDash product
• Ideally have worked on publications in machine learning, AI, data science, data analytics, statistics, or related technical fields

Compensation

Actual compensation within the pay range listed below will be decided based on factors including, but not limited to, skills, prior relevant experience, and specific work location. Base salary is localized according to employee work location.

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.

• 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 range for this position within the United States, including Illinois and Colorado: $130,600—$192,000 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 with door-to-door delivery, and we are looking for team members who can help us go from a company that is known for delivering 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.