A Day In The Life Of A Strategy And Finance Manager At DoorDash
Justine's week as a Strategic Finance Manager at DoorDash involves using SQL to analyze data, updating models to track performance against budget ("how much did we spend on pricing experiments last week?"), and collaborating with cross-functional teams to make data-driven decisions ("pull back on this experiment so that we can stay on budget"). This includes operationalizing action items, conducting business reviews, and undertaking ad hoc analyses to identify potential savings or improvements.
Data Analysis, Financial Modeling, Cross-functional Collaboration, Strategic Thinking, SQL
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Justine Lee
Manager (Strategy & Finance)
DoorDash
University of Pennsylvania, Wharton, 2016
N/A
Economics
Technology
Finance
Honors Student, Scholarship Recipient
Video Highlights
1. Uses SQL to access and analyze DoorDash's financial and operational data for performance review and forecasting.
2. Collaborates with cross-functional teams (pricing, product, etc.) to align on strategies and next steps based on data analysis.
3. Works on both immediate operational tasks (budgeting, funding requests) and long-term strategic projects (root cause analysis, identifying areas for potential savings).
Transcript
What does a day in the life of a strategic finance manager look like?
Instead of a "day in the life," I can give you a breakdown of my week, which I think is more illustrative. The beginning of my week primarily focuses on reviewing last week's performance. I use SQL, a programming language, to access DoorDash's final financial and operational data.
I use this data to update my models and get a view of what happened last week. This provides a view for tracking and forecasting purposes. For example, I'll look at how much was spent on pricing experiments and if that keeps us on pace for our monthly and quarterly budget. I also check if there was a dip in order volume and how that impacts our view moving forward.
Once these models reflect the latest data and we establish our views, I meet with cross-functional business partners to align on the next best steps. This might involve deciding to pull back on an experiment to stay on budget.
In the middle of the week, I focus on operationalizing any action items from the beginning of the week. This may entail making budget requests, sizing any new deviations to the course and speed, and assessing general funding needs.
We also have various business reviews with different groups to discuss the latest trends and initiatives. For instance, I have syncs with the pricing and product teams, where each team presents the latest trends or experiments.
I also use this time to focus on side projects or ad hoc analysis. This type of work may not have an immediate funding need, but I can dig into the data to root cause existing issues. This analysis can also lead to recommendations for potential savings or positive downstream impacts.
Fridays are pretty light. I mostly catch up on any project work or have one-on-one meetings with my manager or other business partners. We can deep dive into certain issues, talk about new projects, or get a general pulse of what's going on across the teams.
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