How to apply for Senior Product Designer, Transit Operations

About Via Transporation

Via Transporation builds software that helps cities and transit agencies run efficient, affordable, and sustainable transport networks. The company's transit dispatch platform already powers on-demand services, and it is now expanding into paratransit, school buses, and fixed lines. Working here means designing tools that directly affect how people with disabilities, students, and caregivers get where they need to go.

About the role

This is a senior product design role focused on extending Via's transit dispatch platform from on-demand rides to paratransit, school buses, and fixed lines. You will design for riders with special needs, including eligibility rules, special conditions, and disability aids, and you will own features from concept to pixel-perfect execution. The work is operationally complex and requires close collaboration with product managers, analysts, and engineers.

A typical day

A typical day might involve reviewing user research findings with an analyst, sketching user flows for a paratransit eligibility feature, and meeting with engineers to discuss technical constraints. You would also spend time refining designs in Figma, presenting rationale to product managers, and contributing updates to the design system. The exact rhythm depends on the team, so ask about their design review cadence and how they collaborate with analysts and engineers.

Who Via Transporation is looking for

• 5-7+ years of digital product design experience, with a portfolio that shows leading projects from concept to launch, ideally in complex operational or enterprise software.
• Experience designing for special needs populations or accessibility use cases, such as paratransit, healthcare, education, or government services.
• Strong research and usability testing skills, including working with analysts to turn data into design decisions.
• High craft bar and the ability to contribute to a design system while managing tradeoffs across multiple user journeys.

Tips for this application

• In your portfolio, include at least one case study where you designed for users with accessibility needs or complex eligibility rules. Show how you handled edge cases and special conditions.
• Reference Via's expansion from on-demand to paratransit, school buses, and fixed lines in your cover letter. Explain why that shift interests you and what design challenges you expect.
• Show that you can work with data. Mention any experience partnering with analysts or using metrics to inform design decisions, because the job description calls this out explicitly.
• Demonstrate experience with design systems. Describe how you contributed to one and how you balanced scalability with specific feature needs.
• Keep your application focused on the transit operations context. Avoid generic product design language and instead use terms like dispatch, rider eligibility, paratransit, and fixed lines where relevant.

What to cover in your cover letter

['Your experience designing for special needs populations and how you ensured those experiences were purposeful and intuitive.', 'A specific example of leading a complex feature from idea to launch, including how you managed tradeoffs and collaborated with engineers and product managers.', 'How you have used user research and usability testing, especially with analysts, to inform design decisions.', 'Why you want to work on transit operations at Via specifically, and how you think about designing for multiple rider populations like paratransit riders, students, and caregivers.']

Research before applying

• Read Via's product pages and any public case studies about their transit dispatch platform, especially anything related to paratransit or fixed lines.
• Look up how paratransit services work in the US, including eligibility rules under the Americans with Disabilities Act, to understand the domain.
• Check recent news or press releases about Via's partnerships with cities, school districts, or transit agencies to see where the platform is expanding.
• Review Via's design system or any public design blog posts if available, to understand how the design team works and what tools they use.

Likely interview topics

Based on the job description, expect questions about:

• How you would approach designing a feature that serves riders based on eligibility, special conditions, and disability aids.
• A walkthrough of a past project where you had to design for multiple user journeys within one product, and how you made it scalable.
• Your process for conducting user research and usability testing with populations that may have accessibility needs or limited mobility.
• How you have contributed to a design system and handled the tension between consistency and feature-specific requirements.
• A tradeoff you made between user needs, technical constraints, and business goals, and how you communicated that decision to stakeholders.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Submitting a portfolio that only shows consumer mobile apps or visual design work without evidence of complex operational or enterprise product design.
• Ignoring the accessibility and special needs aspect of the role. If your application does not mention designing for riders with disabilities or eligibility rules, it will seem out of touch with the job.
• Using generic language about wanting to 'make an impact' without connecting it to transit operations, dispatch systems, or the specific populations this role serves.