Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash)

July 14, 2024

AI Summary

5 min read

Jessica Lachs, VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash, discusses building and scaling a large centralized data team to drive business impact in a complex marketplace. She covers org structure, proactive analysis, hiring traits, metric choices, and cultural norms like extreme ownership, drawing from DoorDash's growth over her 10 years there.

Centralized Team Structure

Lachs favors a centralized analytics organization over embedding teams in business units, with reporting lines to her but pods aligned to functions like marketing or product. This ensures a seat at the table as thought partners sharing the same goals, while preserving benefits like consistent high talent standards, growth paths across areas, uniform metrics and methodologies, scalability through shared problem-spotting, and a strong team culture of learning and peer review. Experiments with embedded models showed lower value compared to this hybrid.

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What you'll learn

1 `* (00:01:44) **Structuring Data Teams: Central Model vs. Embedded**`
2 `* (00:11:05) **Benefits of Central Analytics Org**`
3 `* (00:15:47) **Proactive Analytics: Hackathons and Deep Dives**`
4 `* (00:20:59) **Prioritization and Pushing Back on Requests**`
5 `* (00:24:31) **Hiring Data Talent: Curiosity and Interview Process**`
6 `* (00:33:48) **DoorDash Culture: Extreme Ownership and Early Stories**`
7 `* (00:44:45) **Picking Metrics: Proxies, Simplicity, Common Currency**`

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Jessica Lachs is the global head of analytics and data science at DoorDash, where she’s built one of the largest and most respected data organizations in tech. In her more than 10 years at DoorDash, she has served as the first general manager, responsible for launching new markets; the head of business ops and analytics; and the VP of analytics and data science. Previously, Jessica founded GiftSimple, a social gifting startup, and started her career at Lehman Brothers as an investment banking analyst. In our conversation, she shares:

• How to structure and scale a high-impact analytics organization

• Centralized vs. decentralized data teams

• How to pick the right metric and aligning incentives

• Advice for data people on how and when to push back

• Lessons learned from building a global data team

• How to foster a culture of extreme ownership

• The role of AI in improving analytics team productivity

• Advice for aspiring data leaders without formal training

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