Via

Director of AI Engineering, AI Labs

Via • $275K — $325K *
New York, NY 10025In-Person
Information Technology
8 - 10 years of experience
1 month ago
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 10+ years of hands-on experience in building AI-powered products end-to-end
  • Deep expertise across the AI/ML stack, including LLMs and predictive modeling
  • Experience leading senior engineering teams and providing constructive feedback
  • Strong backend engineering skills, comfortable with scalable API design and distributed systems
  • Ability to thrive in ambiguous, fast-paced environments
  • Excellent communication skills for cross-functional collaboration
  • Willingness to travel for on-site collaboration with partners and customers

Responsibilities

  • Lead and inspire a team of skilled AI engineers, fostering a culture of experimentation and ownership
  • Own the AI Labs engineering roadmap, ensuring reliable product delivery from design to deployment
  • Contribute hands-on to architecture and backend systems for AI-driven features at scale
  • Engage directly with customers to understand their problems and iterate on solutions
  • Facilitate technical scoping workshops with city leaders
  • Drive engineering initiatives across a diverse AI roadmap
  • Collaborate with product, data science, and operations teams to prioritize impactful AI opportunities
  • Stay updated on AI advancements, proactively introducing new ideas and tools

Benefits

  • Free medical plans
  • 401K matching
  • Catered lunch on Wednesdays
  • Comprehensive benefits package
  • Other perks included
Full Job Description
As Director of AI Engineering at Via, you'll lead the AI Labs technical team, with a mandate to move fast, experiment boldly, and build AI-powered products that can fundamentally change how Via and our partner cities operate. This is a rare opportunity to be both a hands-on technical leader and a people leader, managing a small team of exceptional senior engineers while remaining deeply embedded in the work yourself. You'll have real autonomy, direct access to leadership, and the backing of a company already at scale - without the constraints that usually come with it. If you've built AI products end-to-end and you're energized by the idea of doing that in an entrepreneurial, fast-paced mode, with a blank canvas and a world-class team around you, this is the role for you.

About the Role:
  • Lead, develop, and inspire a small team of highly skilled AI engineers - setting technical direction, creating space for deep work, and building a culture of ownership, experimentation, and rigorous engineering from the ground up.
  • Own the engineering execution of the AI Labs roadmap - ensuring your team ships production-grade AI products reliably, from problem framing and data pipeline design through to deployment and iteration in live environments.
  • Stay hands-on - contributing directly to architecture decisions, backend systems, and the code that powers AI-driven features at scale.
  • Work closely with our customers in a forward-deployed manner to deeply understand problems and constraints and iterate quickly on scalable agentic solutions.
  • Lead technical scoping workshops, directly interfacing with city leaders to solve challenging local problems with agentic workflows.
  • Drive engineering across a varied roadmap - spanning data consolidation, predictive modelling, real-time decision-making, and LLM-powered experiences.
  • Collaborate directly with product, data science, and operations teams to identify and prioritize the highest-impact AI opportunities across the business.
  • Stay close to the frontier of AI development and bring new ideas, tools, and approaches into the team proactively.

About You:
  • You have 10+ years of hands-on experience building and shipping AI-powered products end-to-end, with deep expertise across the AI/ML stack - including LLMs, predictive modelling, and production data infrastructure.
  • Experienced in leading senior engineering talent - you know how to set a high bar, give direct feedback, and get the best out of people who are already excellent.
  • You're a strong backend engineer at your core - comfortable designing scalable APIs, working with distributed systems, and writing code that is clean, maintainable, and built to last.
  • You're energized by ambiguity and early-stage environments - you create clarity for your team even when things are moving fast, and you take ownership without being asked.
  • A strong communicator and cross-functional collaborator - able to work fluidly with city partners, product leadership, and fellow engineers.
  • Comfortable with travel to collaborate on-site with partners and customers - being close to the user and problem is part of how you lead.

Compensation and Benefits:
  • Final salary will be determined by the candidate's experience, knowledge, and skills. Salary reflected does not include equity or variable pay, where applicable.
  • Salary Range: $275,000 - $325,000
  • We are proud to offer a generous and comprehensive benefits package, including free medical plans, 401K matching, catered lunch on Wednesdays, and many other perks.

There has never been a more exciting time to be on the cutting edge of public mobility. Ready to join the ride?

About Via

Via Transportation, Inc. is a global public transport, logistics, and TransitTech company headquartered in New York City. Via licenses its technology to cities, transportation authorities, school districts, universities, and private organizations to help build their own technology-driven transportation networks. It operates in partnership with over 400 local governments across more than 20 countries globally, including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Israel, Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Brazil, Indonesia, Finland, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates. In October 2020, Via acquired the logistics company Fleetonomy to accelerate its entry into the last-mile deliveries industry. In March 2021, Via purchased the transportation planning platform Remix for $100M to create the first end-to-end TransitTech platform for cities and transit agencies.
Learn more about Via
Industry
Transportation
Founded
2016
* Ladders Estimates

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