Roughly once each month, Cody Aughney temporarily exchanges his executive responsibilities for the role of a DoorDash delivery driver. Although his principal position is that of vice president overseeing the company’s dasher operations and logistics network, he periodically steps into the shoes of the workers who form the company’s backbone—the delivery partners known as Dashers. On those occasions, he personally transports orders such as coffees, salads, and an array of other takeout meals through the WeDash initiative. This internal program obliges DoorDash’s corporate employees to complete a minimum of four delivery runs annually, ensuring that even those working in strategic or managerial positions maintain a direct, first-hand connection with the real-world experience of the company’s vast gig workforce.
Established as a formal and enduring company policy in 2015, WeDash has become an essential element of DoorDash’s operational culture. It grants employees a tangible and often eye-opening glimpse into the daily realities, logistical pressures, and customer interactions that millions of Dashers face every day. In its most recent annual report, the company revealed that approximately eight million individuals carried out deliveries on its behalf over the past year—a staggering figure that illustrates both the scale and diversity of the platform’s workforce. By allowing its corporate staff to step into that world, DoorDash aims to cultivate greater empathy, refine its internal processes, and enhance the digital tools that both employees and independent contractors rely upon.
This model of blending executive oversight with hands-on experience has become increasingly prevalent throughout the broader gig economy. For instance, Uber operates a comparable initiative that places its corporate team members directly behind the wheel, enabling them to perform ride-hailing trips and to witness, from the driver’s perspective, the obstacles and opportunities inherent in the platform’s design. Even the most senior leaders at companies such as Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash have publicly engaged in these immersive exercises. The chief executive officers of all three firms have described occasions when they personally completed rides or delivered meals through their respective platforms. In a 2021 podcast appearance, DoorDash’s CEO Tony Xu aptly summarized the rationale behind this approach: if one remains only at a superficial level of management, he said, one is unlikely ever to perceive the deeper, structural problems that affect both workers and customers alike.
Similarly, Uber’s CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, shared an illustrative anecdote about being “tip baited”—a practice where a customer offers a generous gratuity while placing the order, only to later withdraw or reduce the tip after delivery is complete. This experience, common among gig workers, underscored for him the frustrations that many drivers must silently endure. At DoorDash, the WeDash initiative not only serves as a conduit for empathy but also functions as an innovative testing ground for new app features. Employees who participate in deliveries become de facto beta testers, identifying design flaws, reporting bugs, and suggesting refinements that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Cody Aughney, who has devoted nine years to the company, recalls that in its early days, DoorDash’s version of employee deliveries originated out of operational necessity rather than as a strategic program. “Back then,” he explained, “we sometimes joined delivery routes simply because there weren’t enough available couriers.” Over the ensuing decade, that stopgap necessity evolved into a sophisticated feedback mechanism. Today, WeDash provides critical insights into what aspects of the app and logistics flow are functioning smoothly and which ones generate friction for Dashers attempting to complete their tasks efficiently.
During a recent lunch-hour demonstration in downtown Washington, D.C., a DoorDash spokesperson guided Business Insider through the process of how WeDash participants actually complete assignments. Using the same DoorDash app that ordinary Dashers rely on, corporate employees can either wait to be offered a delivery request or proactively claim available orders within their vicinity. This parity ensures that the WeDash participants experience the platform’s performance exactly as the average driver does. On that particular occasion, the spokesperson accepted an order consisting of several varieties of sushi, which the app labeled as a large catering order. Yet in practice, the portion was compact enough to be carried by hand to an office building just a few blocks away. This small inconsistency, the spokesperson remarked, exemplified how DoorDash’s internal tagging system could be refined to provide more accurate representations of order size—a matter the company has since committed to improving.
Aughney noted that the continual feedback gathered from WeDash participants has already yielded visible improvements. One prominent example is the redesign of the app’s home screen for Dashers, a change born directly from WeDash and Dasher suggestions. Previously, internal reports revealed widespread complaints about visual clutter and poor usability. Through systematic collection of comments from an internal Slack channel—where WeDash experiences are frequently discussed—DoorDash’s product teams identified these recurring frustrations. After gathering additional feedback from external Dashers to validate the concerns, developers streamlined the interface, expanding the map display and removing distracting elements. Before launching the update to all users, the company relied on WeDash participants to test the beta version extensively, ensuring that the final product was both intuitive and visually polished.
Aughney emphasized that this iterative process exemplifies how internal empathy can translate into measurable design improvements. “That way,” he explained, “you can go out to Dashers and deliver a product that is not just functional, but refined and ready to serve their needs.” WeDash, he added, often brings to light smaller, easily overlooked issues as well. For instance, during a restaurant pickup last year, Aughney himself received an outdated in-app reminder instructing him to wear a mask and maintain social distance—a relic from the height of the pandemic that should have been removed from current versions of the software. While such a minor oversight might never provoke formal feedback from a busy Dasher, the WeDash experience allowed the company to identify and correct it promptly. “I really appreciate those subtle details you’d never think about unless you went out there yourself,” he reflected.
Ultimately, WeDash stands as a compelling illustration of how corporate immersion in front-line work can yield lasting organizational benefits. Through direct participation, DoorDash’s internal employees gain awareness of the technological and human challenges within their platform, uncovering opportunities for refinement that align the company’s innovation with real-world experience. It is a rare example of an enterprise closing the gap between management and the gig-economy workforce—one delivery at a time.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/doordash-makes-corporate-staff-moonlight-as-delivery-workers-wedash-2025-11
