Forward-Deployed AI Engineer: Build City-Scale AI

Via Transportation, Inc.; New York (NY); On-site; USD 160,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Free medical plans

401K matching

Catered lunch on Wednesdays

Job summary

Via is hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to join AI Labs. You will own end-to-end AI product development, from problem framing and data pipelines to deployment in live environments, working directly with city partners.

You'll lead workshops, build scalable backend/frontend features, and shape the team's technical culture while collaborating with product, data science, and operations. Travel for on-site collaboration is required and encouraged.

Qualifications

• 5+ years hands-on experience building full-stack applications that own features end-to-end.
• 3+ years working with AI tools or building AI-powered products.
• Deep expertise across the AI stack, including LLMs and predictive modelling.
• Strong backend engineering, scalable API design, and distributed systems know-how.
• Comfort with ambiguity and early-stage environments, with ownership mindset.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship production-grade AI products end-to-end, owning framing to deployment.
• Work directly with customers in a forward-deployed manner to understand problems and constraints.
• Lead technical scoping workshops with city leaders to solve local problems with AI workflows.
• Contribute to data consolidation, real-time decision-making, and LLM-powered experiences.
• Collaborate with product, data science, and operations to prioritize high-impact AI opportunities.
• Write clean, scalable backend and frontend code powering AI-driven features.
• Help shape the technical culture of AI Labs from the ground up.
• Stay close to AI frontier and bring new ideas, tools, and approaches into the team.

Skills

Full stack development

AI tools

LLMs

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

Job description

Via is hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to join AI Labs. You will own end-to-end AI product development, from problem framing and data pipelines to deployment in live environments, working directly with city partners.

You'll lead workshops, build scalable backend/frontend features, and shape the team's technical culture while collaborating with product, data science, and operations. Travel for on-site collaboration is required and encouraged.