Product Manager

About Klir

We're hiring to make water better.

Klir is the Operational Data Hub that connects water utility programs, data, and decisions into one connected operational system. It replaces fragmented tools and siloed data with a unified view of Drinking Water, Wastewater, and Industrial Pretreatment operations — giving teams the clarity, visibility, and continuity to act sooner and with more confidence.

Backed by Insight Partners, Bowery Capital, and Spider Capital, Klir is one of the fastest-growing companies in the digital water space.

About Klir Connect (Payments)

Right now, the people utilities depend on in the field — backflow testers, liquid waste haulers, industrial users — work across a maze of disconnected portals, phone calls, and paperwork just to submit a compliance report or pay a fee. Klir Connect is a new business unit inside Klir, built to fix that.

It sits alongside Klir's core hub rather than replacing anything: the billing systems, GIS, and metering platforms utilities already run on stay exactly where they are. Klir Connect is the connected, utility-branded front door that sits on top — where a tester or hauler submits a report and pays a convenience fee in one place.

The payment gateway is live today, built on Stripe, with the City of Lemoore, CA processing the first live payments through it for their backflow testing program. Backflow is the starting point; Fats, Oils and Grease (FOG) and Liquid Waste Hauling (LWH) are next, with a broader marketplace vision — provider rebates, one-click applications, utility approvals — further down the road.

We've hired a VP to lead this unit, joining in August, and we're now building the founding team around them.

Location:This position is hybrid (2 days in office) and based in Toronto — we're also open to remote candidates based in the US, given Klir Connect's early customers are US utilities.

Role Description

Klir Connect is Klir's next business, not a feature bolted onto the existing product. It has its own customers — the testers and haulers submitting reports and payments, not just the utility staff who buy the core hub — and its own product to define, largely from scratch. This role exists to own that definition day to day: what we build first, in what order, and why, working alongside our incoming VP and a small founding team.

What you'll own

Product strategy, primary responsibility

• Roadmap and sequencing — own the roadmap and product design for Klir Connect's payment workflows which will include the invoicing process and the integration with the Klir Core platform. The core financial service platform will be integrated into numerous use cases starting with backflow testing, then FOG and liquid waste hauling — working directly with Klir Connect to decide what gets built first and why.
• Workflow and experience design — define the end-to-end flow — report submission, checkout, receipts, confirmation — for testers, haulers, and property contacts, working closely with design and engineering.
• Customer discovery — spend real time with backflow testers, haulers, and utility staff to understand what a genuinely better experience looks like for them, not only for the utility paying the bill.
• Payments infrastructure — partner with engineering and finance on the Stripe integration and convenience-fee model, and start scoping what a broader marketplace — provider rebates, one-click applications, utility approvals — looks like over time.
• Rollout — help take Klir Connect from a single live customer to the next wave of utilities, turning one successful rollout into a repeatable one.
• Cross-functional partnership — work closely with CX, engineering, sales, and marketing — Klir Connect is a separate unit, but it runs on the same data hub and often the same customers as the rest of Klir.
• Data Governance: Build the product with telemetry that will provide data to assist in the improvement of the experience and identify issues before the customer has bad experiences.

The competencies we're hiring for

We care far more about how you think and operate than what your résumé says your last title was.

• Comfort building from zero — you've shipped a product where the market wasn't fully proven yet, and you're energized by defining scope rather than being handed it.
• Payments or fintech literacy — you understand how a payment gateway, convenience fees, and reconciliation actually work — or you pick it up fast. You are truly interested in financial services and how they help to grow businesses.
• Two-sided thinking — you can hold the utility's needs and the individual tester's or hauler's needs in your head at the same time, without defaulting to only one.
• Judgment under ambiguity — you make good calls when the answer isn't obvious, and you know when to act, when to wait, and when to escalate.
• Communication — you can write a clear one-pager, run a discovery conversation, and brief a VP, often in the same day or week.
• AI fluency — you think about how AI reduces the support burden of scaling this business, not only how it helps you draft a PRD faster.
• Inquisitive and curious
• Bias for action - you value speed, getting things done and improving the product and experience vs. prolonged analysis.
• Team first mentality - you work seamlessly across functions, picking up work that may belongs to others when it's needed, share credit easily, and over index on outcomes than about personal acknowledgment.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, and Marketing to feed field intelligence back into the roadmap and the story.
• Provide technical continuity post-sale so what you demoed is what the customer gets.
  
  

What we're not prescriptive about

You don't need to have shipped a payments product before, and you don't need a background in water or utilities. What matters is that you can point to evidence — from wherever it comes — that you operate well building something new, under real ambiguity, close to the people using it.

Backgrounds we'd be open to: product management, fintech or payments PM, growth or platform PM, or a strong generalist from an early-stage environment who can demonstrate the competencies above.

Our Commitment To You

• Our Dedication to Your Well-being:
  We value your contribution and recognize the importance of your peace of mind. We offer a competitive salary and benefits tailored to your market, ensuring you can focus on your best work without worries about your quality of life at home.
• Leaving a Lasting Legacy:
  We commit to providing you with the opportunity to utilize your talents to create a meaningful and enduring impact on our species for generations to come.
• Pursuit of Excellence:
  As part of a Y Combinator market-leading company, we ensure you have the chance to continually challenge yourself and strive for your personal best.
• Balancing Serious Work with Fun:
  We guarantee you the opportunity to work within a team that understands the significance of our mission while maintaining a lighthearted and enjoyable work atmosphere. Our mission is paramount, but we believe in having fun along the way.
• Values That Unite Us:
  You will work alongside a group of individuals who prioritize honesty, audacity, and unwavering unity. We stand shoulder to shoulder, aiming to be the difference between good and great in everything we do.
• Supporting Your Success:
  Our leaders are unwavering in their dedication to your growth and success. They are committed to helping you become the best version of yourself through fearless feedback, a focus on personal growth, and a culture of transparency.
• Competitive salary and benefits for your market. A hybrid culture with genuine flexibility. A small, founder-led exec team that will invest in your growth. And a rare chance to build a new business line, inside a company already trusted by water utilities, from its earliest days. Plus the chance to shape a genuinely new business line from its earliest days — one built on top of a mission we take seriously: clean, safe water made more affordable and accessible for everyone.

PI21be7b50209b-30511-41164654