Interview with Jen Hou
Design Leadership Interview at DoorDash
Hi Jen, thanks for taking time to chat with me! Let’s start a quick introduction: how long have you been at DoorDash and what does your role entail?
I joined DoorDash in the summer of 2022 to lead Ads & Promotions Design. At the time Ads & Promotions was just getting started — we launched our first ads product in 2021, and have been rapidly growing our impact since then.
Our team’s charter is to balance the needs of consumers, merchants, and advertisers to make DoorDash the best place for businesses to connect with local customers. When people think of DoorDash, they think of how we make their lives more convenient, and we believe that advertising can also connect people with useful products and services. Getting a special promotion can make shopping more affordable and delightful. For merchants and advertisers, they’ve long thought of DoorDash as an essential place to reach customers, and our team gives them new tools to express their brand in the digital world.
What inspired you to get into product design, and how has your career in product design evolved over time?
Landing in product design was a happy accident for me, and my path was anything but straightforward! I’ve always learned the most by doing, and I’ve done a lot of different things in my career, from going to film school at Rhode Island School of Design, to helping startups put together VC pitch decks at a small agency, to designing healthcare products at IBM Watson.
The first products I ever designed were recommendation engines, and I’ve worked closely with machine learning teams throughout my career to make experiences more personalized. For the past few years I’ve been in the ads domain, first at a startup, then leading design teams at Spotify and now DoorDash.
There’s a lot of evidence that most successful businesses tend to pivot away from their first idea in order to achieve something great. They often tested different ideas but when something gained traction, they committed to investing in it. I think about my career the same way, focusing on learning the right things and working with the right people in a directional sense. Through it all, the most important lesson I’ve learned is to keep an open mind about the future.
What drew you to the team at DoorDash?
While nowadays people see DoorDash as a successful company, there were many points in time when things got tough and it was not clear whether we’d survive. In fact, there were times when people outside the company didn’t understand what we were trying to do, but the team stuck together to realize something others thought was impossible.
This team has an incredible spirit to pursue ambitious goals, and we’re not afraid to take an unconventional approach to get there! We’re always challenging ourselves to do and be more, but when the going gets tough we’re there to support each other. As someone who loves building new products from the ground up, this is an amazing environment for driving innovation alongside an inspiring team.
You’re currently leading the Ads & Promotions design team. What are your favorite aspects of designing for users in this space?
I want to take a step back and talk about why Ads is one of the most impactful spaces to be a designer. Throughout the history of the Internet, advertising has been the foundational business model that enabled services and content to be democratized to a wider audience. This is also true at DoorDash because Ads & Promotions helps us offer more affordable deliveries to consumers.
Fundamentally, trust is what powers advertising. When enough people love a product because it’s useful and delightful, there will be opportunities to advertise to them. Sometimes though, companies forget this fact and start to prioritize revenue over user satisfaction. When this happens, it breaks that trust and creates a vicious cycle where people stop using the product, and revenue goes down along with it.
As designers working in monetization, we bring a valuable user-centric perspective to the very heart of the business. Our superpower is to align business goals with user needs, to ensure that we consider all the different users in our three-sided marketplace. We create a balanced ecosystem that delivers the most relevant ad experiences to our consumers, while empowering merchants and advertisers to grow their business through turnkey marketing tools.
How does your team work within the greater Design team?
The Ads & Promotions team is by nature a horizontal team that serves many different users. This means we collaborate closely with both the Merchant and Consumer design teams, as well as our New Verticals design team on convenience and grocery products. While we may not “own” all the surfaces we design for, we must be mindful to create cohesive experiences that seamlessly integrate into each one.
Your team collaborates with partners across both the Merchant and Consumer teams to build experiences to meet the needs of all users. How would you describe the relationships between these teams here at DoorDash?
We work closely with the Merchant team to lower the barrier to entry and make marketing understandable. One of the principal challenges for Merchants is that many of them are unfamiliar with advertising and don’t have time to create a marketing strategy for their business. We help them understand why Ads & Promotions are great tools to grow their business and make the campaign creation process intuitive for those with limited experience.
On the flipside, we partner with the Consumer team to build the most relevant, transparent, and unified Ads & Promotions experiences for shoppers. Consumers are more likely to engage with ads that feel personalized to their interests, and expect all our content to be highly relevant to their intent. Our goal is to build products that seamlessly blend into the shopping experience.
You’re hiring for your team right now. What are some of the qualities you look for in potential candidates?
There are three qualities I look for in any candidate regardless of discipline, and two specific to Product Design:
- Intentionality: At DoorDash, everyone has the freedom to autonomously identify opportunities and make a strategic impact. Because of this, having a clear rationale for decisions and being able to communicate that rationale to a variety of stakeholders are crucial. I expect every person on my team to be a decisive leader who brings a strong point of view to the business.
- Ownership: “Imagine that you and I were starting a company together.” We look for people who proactively identify problems, drive solutions, and take personal responsibility for outcomes.
- Growth Mindset: One of our team values is that we strive to be 1% better everyday. This is the only way we’ll hit our ambitious goals — by being curious and open minded, and by testing the limits of our capabilities until we’re able to accomplish things beyond our wildest imagination.
- Design Breadth: In our current stage of growth at DoorDash, we build many 0–1 products and need generalist designers. This means that we look for people who demonstrate the ability to take on a wide breadth of design challenges and can work with different types of teams.
- Design Craft: One of our top goals is to improve design quality in our organization. That’s why we look for folks who care about the details and showcase their strong design craft and user-centered methodology.
Interested in joining Jen’s team? Check out our career page for open Product Design roles.
What has been your approach towards developing talent and leading teams to success?
When it comes to building the team, there are a few key dimensions that I think about often:
Community
The foundation of our team is a culture where we support and inspire each other to reach new heights. I believe the best teams include people who bring different perspectives to the table, and try to recognize every person on the team as an individual. Creative conflict is essential for innovation and at the end of the day, respectful debate helps expand our perspective as a team.
Purpose
Every person on the team should feel that what they do matters. A sense of purpose can come from a desire to master a new skill, the autonomy to make important decisions, or the mission that we’re all working towards. I help my team find the “why” by identifying growth opportunities, contextualizing our impact on users and the business, and defining our mission and vision together.
Empowerment
My long term goal is to empower designers to work more autonomously and grow into leaders in their own right. I guide the team with frameworks, high level advice, and feedback in finding the right approach. It’s essential for everyone to develop their own point of view on our product, as well as principles for the way they do things. Through career coaching, I help designers identify their personal development themes so that we can find exciting opportunities for them to grow professionally while making a business impact.
What is a piece of advice you’ve received from a colleague or mentor that has stuck with you over time?
I once asked a colleague I admired how she made career decisions. She has had a truly impressive career spanning decades, across many senior leadership and executive positions.
Instead of talking about career ladders or how to get that big promotion, she spoke about the importance of using guiding principles to grow your career intentionally. The reason for this is because there are so many ways to be successful, and without thinking about it we can easily go down a path that isn’t right for us because it’s the most conventional one.
Everyone is on their own path and no one else holds the answers to what we are meant to do. When we have that personal North Star, it’s easier to persist through obstacles and to keep going even when most of our peers are pursuing a different path.
Upon reflection, I realized that the things I valued were building strong communities where different voices could be heard, and creating innovative products that redefine an industry. Whenever I need to make a major career decision, I always stop to think about how it would bring me closer to these goals.
What do you enjoy doing outside of work? Do you have any hobbies or passions that you’re currently pursuing?
I’m an indoor gardening enthusiast who can keep (almost) any plant alive! I even installed grow lights in my north-facing NYC apartment so that I can grow tropical plants year-round. I think there are lots of parallels between gardening and managing a team — everyone needs different conditions to thrive and brings their own unique qualities to the community.
Thanks for taking the time to chat, Jen! One last question before we end: what’s your go-to restaurant or food place?
So hard to choose! I live in New York and one of the things I love most about the city is that I can always find something new to try.
One thing that people might not know about me is that I grew up in Louisiana, so I’m a Cajun food connoisseur. My Cajun mainstays are Lowerline for the best gumbo I’ve had outside of New Orleans, and crawfish from The Boil.
Interested in joining Jen’s team? Check out our career page for open Product Design roles.
Learn more about other leaders at DoorDash here.
