How DoorDash Manages Mobile Releases
Article Summary
Manolo Sañudo from DoorDash reveals how their iOS team ships weekly releases without breaking things. Spoiler: it's not about having more QA people.
DoorDash's consumer iOS team maintains a weekly release cadence while managing multiple apps at scale. Manolo Sañudo, a software engineer on the New User Experience team, breaks down their six-year-evolved process that balances speed with quality through distributed ownership and strict guardrails.
Key Takeaways
- Weekly releases with phased rollout: 1% on Day 1, full rollout by Day 3
- Component owners (not QA) test their own features using Runway platform
- Dedicated Slack channel per release prevents hotfix confusion
- Strict cherry-pick criteria: only user-impacting regressions allowed in late
- Small rotating release manager team keeps decisions consistent
Critical Insight
DoorDash ships iOS updates every week by distributing testing responsibility to feature owners and using strict criteria for late-cycle changes.
