Should DoorDash add bicycle dashers?
Company: DoorDash
Role: Data Scientist
Category: Analytics & Experimentation
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Technical Screen
DoorDash is considering onboarding **bicycle couriers** in a dense urban market that currently relies mostly on car or scooter dashers. As a Data Scientist, how would you determine whether adding bicycle dashers is a good idea?
Please address the following:
1. **Historical analysis:** What historical data would you use to estimate whether bicycle dashers could improve the marketplace? Be explicit about the features, segments, and assumptions you would examine.
2. **Success metrics:** What would be your primary metrics and guardrail metrics across consumers, merchants, dashers, and company economics?
3. **Experiment design:** How would you design an A/B test or phased rollout to measure the impact of introducing bicycle dashers?
4. **Network effects / interference:** In a two-sided marketplace, adding a new courier type can affect dispatch efficiency, order acceptance, wait times, and dasher earnings across nearby zones. How would you account for these marketplace spillovers when designing and interpreting the experiment?
5. **Decision rule:** Under what conditions would you recommend scaling, iterating, or stopping the rollout?
You may assume the market has variation in order density, trip distance, weather, road infrastructure, and time of day.
Quick Answer: This question evaluates a data scientist's skills in experimental design, causal inference, marketplace analytics, metrics engineering, and business-impact evaluation when assessing the introduction of bicycle couriers in an urban delivery marketplace.