I applied through a recruiter. The process took 6 weeks.

A DoorDash recruiter contacted me twice on LinkedIn about what sounded like an active senior engineering opportunity related to AI / agentic systems. The outreach was polished and made the role sound urgent and relevant to my background. After I replied, I was sent a Calendly link, but the first available slot was several weeks out. I scheduled the call anyway. Shortly before the scheduled call, the recruiter canceled with a generic message saying the position had been filled and they could not move forward.

This was especially frustrating because the same pattern had happened before: outreach, long wait for recruiter availability, then cancellation because the role was no longer available. My impression was that this was more like pipeline sourcing than a real active recruiting process. I understand roles can close, but candidates should not be asked to wait weeks for a call unless there is a real approved opening and the recruiter can confirm the job ID, team, level, and hiring scope. DoorDash should be more transparent when outreach is only exploratory.

Advice to candidates: Before scheduling time with DoorDash recruiting, ask for the official job link, job ID, team, level, location, and confirmation that the role is still active. Otherwise, you may spend weeks waiting for a recruiter screen that gets canceled before it happens.

No interview questions were asked because the recruiter canceled before the scheduled call.