$4 billion food delivery startup DoorDash hires a key Uber executive away to lead its engineering team
- DoorDash has hired Ryan Sokol as its vice president of engineering. Sokol joins the company from Uber.
- Sokol led and scaled UberEats, Uber's food delivery service, from its inception.
- He will lead DoorDash engineering, including product, infrastructure and data science, reporting to CEO Tony Xu.
- DoorDash was last valued at $4 billion in a $250 million funding round in August.
DoorDash, the $4 billion food delivery startup, has hired former Uber executive Ryan Sokol as its vice president of engineering.
Sokol joins DoorDash after a nearly 5-year stint at the ride-hailing app, where he led and scaled UberEats from its inception. UberEats is one of the company's major success stories - in 2018, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that UberEats alone was on a $6 billion bookings run rate.
Sokol, a self-described "engineer in manager's clothing," will lead DoorDash's 200-person engineering team, focusing on product, infrastructure, and optimizing software. He will report to CEO Tony Xu.
"I'm joining DoorDash to help an amazing team reach new heights," said Sokol in a blog post announcing the hire. "All of my interactions and diligence with those I trust would lead me to believe that DoorDash is poised to be one of the most influential companies on the planet."
Sokol joins the company after it saw 300 percent year-over-year growth for 2018, expanded to over 3,000 cities and all 50 states, as well as tripled its valuation to $4 billion in a $250 million funding round, the company said.
The news also comes at the end of a hiring sprint for DoorDash: The company also hired CFO Prabir Adarkar, VP Strategic Finance Ravi Inukonda and CPO Sarah Waegner all within the last 9 months.
Like Sokol, Adarkar and Inukonda were also hired from Uber, where they both served in the role of head of finance before coming over the DoorDash.