My epilogue at DoorDash
Biggest wins and lessons over the last 6.5 years
This article marks my last story from DoorDash, as I conclude 6.5 years of a truly remarkable journey as Head of Design. I’ve had the incredible experience of witnessing an IPO, growing the design team 18x, building a #1 food app cherished by our customers, and becoming the company’s first design VP. My journey was filled with countless once-in-a-lifetime experiences, making it the best career one could ever dream of.
If someone were to ask me to name one big accomplishment I feel most proud of, it would undoubtedly be the “culture” we built. While some might perceive “culture” as a soft, fluffy, and nebulous concept — perhaps relegated to fun team offsites and feel-good bonding moments — for me, culture meant EVERYTHING. It encompasses what we do, what we say, who we are, how we show up, what we value, and what we stand for. Building a strong culture demands significant effort and intentionality, and it’s intrinsically shaped from the top down. As the functional leader, my presence, the standards I upheld, and the vision I held for our collective future were all crucial in defining the right culture for the organization.
To nurture this vision, I focused my energies on three critical areas:
1. Building with the right people: my obsession with recruiting
If there’s one thing I want to be remembered for, it’s my relentless pursuit of talent. Our CEO, Tony Xu, once lauded me as one of the best recruiters among DoorDash leaders — a recognition I hold dear, knowing the impossibly high bar he sets.
But to earn that title, the journey wasn’t easy or glorious. Because DoorDash was still a lesser-known brand in the design community and I didn’t have a rich network back then, attracting top talent was a genuine struggle. It truly felt like fighting with bare hands. However, in some strange way, these challenges fueled me to go the extra mile, figuring out original ways to find, engage, and hire the very best. I wanted to prove to the world that it is possible with the right strategy and unwavering obsession.
Over my 6.5 years at DoorDash, I have had the privilege of hiring nearly 250 individuals, and I have interviewed over 1,000 — that means an average of one new hire every 10 days and interviewing someone every other day. I woke up to LinkedIn notifications about who was “open to work” and went to bed sourcing more candidates on my own. During peak hiring seasons, I even lost my voice from the sheer volume of interviews. I joke that I “gave birth” to the team through my throat. Looking back, it was a pure act of obsession.
We grew the team from a modest 9 to a thriving 160, a testament to the enormous hours spent in interviews and interactions with countless candidates. Along the way, we built our recruiting practice from the ground up, meticulously evolving our interview processes, elevating our hiring bar, defining job ladders, fine-tuning compensation bands, and continuously training our interviewers for many years.
My journey here began with landing the first pivotal hire, and it concludes with the successful recruitment of my successor. This full-circle moment manifests my belief that people are the heart of our culture and the driving force behind our output.
Of course, I didn’t do this alone. I was incredibly fortunate to have built multiple generations of leadership benches who shared the same mission and upheld rigorous recruiting standards alongside me. I’m immensely proud to call my current leadership team the “Design Avengers,” from whom I learn and am inspired every day. They will undoubtedly continue the legacy of exceptional recruiting within DoorDash Design.
2. Building the right things: the pursuit of design excellence
Before I was an operator or a manager, I was, at my core, a designer. It was important for me to create well-crafted products that customers love and I feel proud of.
DoorDash had always been known for its fast execution and customer obsession. However, developing a shared understanding of “the right level of craft” was challenging, as quality is nuanced, subjective, and inherently difficult to quantify. We needed to balance speed with quality, and I introduced the “cupcake 🧁 concept” in our product development cycle. This concept, brilliantly coined by my former manager Peter Merholz at Groupon, likens product development to baking. Instead of attempting to bake a complex wedding cake at once, the team should focus on making cupcakes. Cupcakes are quicker and easier to bake, allowing for iterative testing, leading to more complete, delightful, and valuable outcomes for customers. (For more details, see my Fortune interview article).
After years of championships, I’m proud that the cupcake concept is broadly embraced across the company, with teams constantly questioning whether their products feel like cupcakes. With many cupcake products now prevalent, many teams are in the next stage of product maturity: the “birthday cake 🎂.”
Beyond establishing principles, we also developed and refined product approval processes — from product brief to design review to ship review — to ensure the product quality and align cross-functional team expectations. Related to the top-down culture setting as mentioned earlier, it was crucial for leaders to continuously push the team’s thinking and uphold craft rigor in these forums. Design leaders needed to engage with a strong point of view on product direction and operate at the lowest level of detail.
Through years of dedicated evangelization, the DoorDash design team evolved from a reactive service bureau in its early days into a strategic thought partner, deeply involved in product strategy and leading the vision for many major initiatives. During my tenure, I’m proud that Design drove numerous major redesigns across all product areas in our three-sided marketplace, benefiting consumers, Dashers, and merchants.
3. Building in the right way: crafting our playbook
The third pillar of my work revolved around defining how we operate. It’s simply impossible to help talented individuals succeed and create great products without a strong set of principles and a playbook within the organization.
I deeply believe in the power of authenticity. I intended to foster psychological safety within the team by showing up with vulnerability, transparency, and unwavering honesty. This ethos is beautifully manifested in our “Design Stories” series, where anyone in Design can share their uniqueness and individuality — qualities that are paramount in creative fields. We must be free and unafraid and respect others’ beings as deeply as we desire to be respected. This is how we build the community we genuinely want to be a part of.
I also champion full autonomy. People are hired for their talent and expertise, and I believe that my role was to create opportunities and expand the team’s potential, never to dictate. We must dream big, think unconstrained, and have fun — that’s the only way innovation can truly happen.
And of course, autonomy must be paired with accountability. We are here to make a significant impact on the business, and that’s the only way we can be valued in the company. We must think and act like owners, always solving problems. Resilience and optimism are crucial as the company evolves and changes. And all leaders must lead by example, setting the tone for the entire organization.
These principles are very much woven into the fabric of our day-to-day operations in DoorDash Design today. Through many blog articles I published in the past, I wanted readers to peek into the culture we were so proud to build and be a part of. I am confident that this legacy will continue long after my time here.
A personal reflection: a journey of self-discovery
My journey at DoorDash has also been a profound period of self-discovery. I learned so much and grew so much — not only as a design leader but also as a person.
For a long time, I wrestled with insecurity and imposter syndrome, as reflected in a few past articles I publicly shared. This likely led me to become a workaholic. I was constantly paranoid about not being worthy of being a Head of Design or good enough for the company, fearing everyone’s judgment. Interestingly, the last few months, particularly as I was going through the search for my successor, were pivotal in gaining newfound confidence. As I looked back and realized the magnitude of my accomplishments, I finally realized that I wasn’t so bad after all, and no other candidates were perfect. It was a powerful lesson in taking pride in myself and embracing confidence.
I also found a deep sense of belonging. While it often felt like years of endless struggles and battles, I forged many lifelong friendships that I will cherish. It’s truly a testament to how navigating challenges together strengthens human bonds. I joined the company with bare hands, but I’m leaving the company with my heart filled with so much love and support.
I gained clarity on my strengths and areas for growth. I became remarkably adept at recruiting and team building. Yet, I still see some areas where I could have been more vocal about our needs and more strategically promoted our work. I also wish I had spent more time becoming more technically advanced, especially with the emergence of AI, to make myself more marketable.
Perhaps the most significant self-discovery came with my cancer diagnosis last year. It was a profound inflection point, teaching me that there are moments in life when pushing harder simply isn’t an option. I learned the vital importance of self-care and allowing some margins around my life. Nothing will fall apart if you don’t finish the work or respond to Slack messages right away. This realization, above all, has reshaped my perspective and paved the way for this next chapter in my life.
After 25 years of obsessing over advancing my career, I’m finally taking a career break. This decision took a lot of reflection and courage. However, I am excited about the new hobbies, adventures, relationships, and learnings ahead of me. I hope my story can be an inspiration, whether you’re on a leadership journey, struggling with self-doubt, or about to take a different turn in your life or career. It’s okay to be yourself — always stay optimistic and be free. I’ll see you out there!
