Software developer

Transit isn’t magic — but for millions of our riders, it sure feels that way.

For the last decade our team has worked tirelessly to blow the minds of our riders off their hinges with data innovations, be it improving their ETA predictions with machine learning, or pinpointing the location of their underground trains using their phone’s motion sensors. We’ve scoured the earth for the best data sources, improved upon them, and created others entirely from scratch with a combination of technical bravura and rider crowdsourcing. Today, Transit is the gold standard of transit data for riders and agencies alike.

We’re now looking for a first principles-minded, data-savvy developer who’d stop at nothing to make our data pipelines better — because don’t the bus lines stop enough as it is already? You’ll master our stack from tip-to-tail, making improvements to our data collection, analytics, and APIs so that the right internal and external stakeholders are always getting the cleanest, most reliable, and up-to-date data. You’ll collaborate with our data scientists to build products for riders, agencies, and members of Transit’s cabin crew, and serve as a trusted technical partner as we dream up the next data-encrusted rabbit to pull out of our CI/CD-enchanted hat.

With your help, we’ll make public transit more compelling for riders to use and easier for transit agencies to improve, all while helping your city (and hundreds of others) become more delightful places to live, breathe, and roam around.

Interested? Hallelujah Here’s what we’ll need on your end:

Help design and develop scalable backend services. These include APIs, authentication, and various business logic things. You’ll continuously integrate them with frontend and external systems

Build and maintain robust data ingestion and ETL pipelines for structured and unstructured data, using Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and other data engineering frameworks

Collaborate with our infrastructure and platform teams to ensure backend systems and pipelines are secure, observable, and scalable in the cloud

Work closely with our data scientists to productionize machine learning components, prioritizing squeaky-clean code, integration into product pipelines, and upholding Transit’s rigorous engineering standards

You don’t need to come from a traditional data engineering background, but you should be a data-minded dev with the necessary backend chops Our ideal candidate will have:

Strong skills in Python or Typescript, with experience writing clean, maintainable, and testable code

Experience with building backend systems, RESTful APIs, and habituated to modern software development practices (version control, CI/CD, testing frameworks, etc.)

The willingness to work with cloud platforms — ideally, you’ve worked with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) before — and you’re also ideally familiar with services like BigQuery, Pub/Sub, Cloud Run, and Dataflow

Experience designing and deploying data pipelines (or an interest in learning the tools and patterns for scalable ETL/ELT workflows)

Familiarity with relational and non-relational databases (e.g. PostgreSQL, Redis)

Comfort working with containerized applications using Docker and orchestration tools like Kubernetes

Would be nice if

You live (or dream of living) in Montreal

Familiar with Airflow and other workflow orchestration tools

Passionate about cities, urbanism, public transit, design, technology, or all the above

Familiarity with transportation data formats like GTFS, GTFS-rt.

Don’t feel like all the requirements apply to you but you still think you’d be a great fit for Transit? Don’t hesitate to apply

Compensation and benefits

$80 000 - $115 000 CAD per year, based on experience

Stock options

Comprehensive medical and dental coverage

Four-day work week at full-time salary (yes, you read that right)

Apple laptop and equipment

$1,600 annual mobility allowance. STM? BIXI? Uber? E-bike? Scooter? Going car-free is free at Transit.

A training and development budget

Generous maternal/paternal/parental leave policy. Gotta fill out our tandem bicycles somehow

Spend your days surrounded by first-rate teammates and the best view of Montreal and/or [insert exotic Zoom background]

When you’re in the office: you’ll be in urbanist heaven, surrounded by Mile End’s urban gardens, bike paths, BIXI docks, bus stops, a metro station, and limitless restaurants… cafés… bars… concert halls… bagel boutiques…

Communal lunch-and-learn with free food in the office each week

Public transit is used by overwhelmingly more women and people of colour than other modes of transportation. We try to make sure the diversity of our users is reflected in the team that serves them. Because when we include people of all races, genders, sexual orientations, ages, and identities — we end up building a better app for everyone who uses Transit.

We encourage candidates of all ages, genders, origins and orientations to apply. If you’d like to specify which pronouns you use, feel free to include that in your application email.

And if your lived experience has given you a unique perspective on all things transportation, mobility, accessibility, urbanism? Let us know, and we’ll make sure your application gets the attention it merits.

How to apply

Shoot us an email at jobs+software@transitapp.com with a CV and the words “I’m feeling RESTful” in the subject line. Include a quick summary of who you are and why you’re interested in working at Transit, and some projects you’re proud to have worked on. We look forward to meeting you

PS: When you apply, let us know how you heard about the position Whispers, grapevines, middle-of-the-night Google searches? We’re dying to know.

PPS: Unfortunately, we don't accept in-person applications or singing telegrams. Make your application sing instead

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