The new Data Science Manager at DoorDash spent five months navigating a fast‑paced environment where building trust, business fluency, and data intuition are paramount. The first three months focus on establishing connections, understanding domain context, and mastering data tools.

Relationships form the backbone of onboarding. Daily check‑ins with the manager, who also serves as the onboarding buddy, set expectations. Cross‑functional meet‑and‑greets follow a clear agenda, while weekly 1:1s with key partners and early talks with direct reports reveal project challenges and career goals.

Domain knowledge is accelerated by AI assistants. Glean pulls internal docs and answers metric questions, and NotebookLM produces summaries and mind maps, allowing the manager to grasp acronyms, timelines, and key metrics without drowning in nested documents.

Data fluency is built by setting up the tech stack in week one, leveraging Cursor to auto‑generate Snowflake SQL, and dissecting core metrics during weekly reviews. Hands‑on mini projects—opportunity sizing, experiment design, and forecasting—cement understanding, while improving onboarding docs demonstrates ownership and accelerates team impact.