Via

Forward Deployed Engineer, AI Labs

Via • $160K — $220K *
New York, NY 10025In-Person
Enterprise Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Today
Be an Early Applicant
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5+ years of hands-on experience building full stack applications with feature ownership
  • 3+ years working with AI tools or building AI-powered products
  • Deep expertise across the AI stack, including LLMs and predictive modeling
  • Strong backend engineering skills with scalable API design experience
  • Comfortable in ambiguity and ownership in early-stage environments
  • Excellent cross-functional communication and intellectual curiosity
  • Experience working directly with users and willingness to travel for on-site collaboration

Responsibilities

  • Build and ship production-grade AI products from problem framing to deployment
  • Work closely with customers to understand problems and iterate on solutions
  • Lead technical scoping workshops with city leaders to address local challenges
  • Contribute to intelligent tooling involving data consolidation and predictive modeling
  • Collaborate with product, data science, and operations teams to identify AI opportunities
  • Write clean, scalable backend and frontend code for AI-driven features
  • Shape the technical culture of AI Labs by influencing development practices
  • Stay updated on AI developments to bring new ideas into the team

Benefits

  • Free medical plans
  • 401K matching
  • Catered lunch on Wednesdays
  • Generous and comprehensive benefits package
  • Equity and variable pay options available
Full Job Description
As a Forward Deployed Engineer at Via, you'll be a founding member of Via's new AI Labs - an incubator-style team operating like a startup within the company. This is a rare opportunity to get in at the ground floor of something genuinely new: a dedicated space to move fast, experiment boldly, and build AI-powered products that could fundamentally change how Via and our partner cities operate. You'll have real autonomy, direct access to leadership, and the backing of a company that's already at scale - without the constraints that usually come with it. If you're experienced at building AI products end-to-end and you're energized by the idea of doing that with a blank canvas, this is the role for you.

About the Role:
  • Build and ship production-grade AI products end-to-end - owning everything from problem framing and data pipeline design through to deployment and iteration in live environments.
  • 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.
  • Work across a fast-moving and varied roadmap, contributing to intelligent tooling involving 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.
  • Write clean, scalable backend and frontend code that powers AI-driven features - designing APIs, managing data flows, and ensuring your systems perform reliably at scale.
  • Help shape the technical culture of AI Labs from the ground up - contributing to how the team builds, reviews, ships, and iterates.
  • Stay close to the frontier of AI development and bring new ideas, tools, and approaches into the team proactively.

About You:
  • You have 5+ years of hands-on experience building full stack applications - with a track record of owning features end-to-end rather than working in isolation on models or research.
  • You have 3+ years of working with AI tools and/or building AI powered products
  • You have deep expertise across the AI stack - including LLMs, predictive modelling, and the data infrastructure required to support them in real-world environments.
  • 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 don't need everything to be defined to do great work, and you take ownership without being asked.
  • You bring the communication skills to work cross-functionally and the intellectual curiosity to keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible with AI.
  • You thrive when working directly with users and customers, and are comfortable with travel to collaborate on-site.

Compensation and Benefits (US only)
  • 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: $160,000 - $220,000
  • 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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