Technical Product Manager

Sarah Smith Fund; Vancouver; On-site; CAD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Skyward Wildfire Technologies is hiring a Technical Product Manager to own the Vista platform – translating research into reliable, scalable products. You will work across atmospheric science, ML, software, and field operations, coordinating deadlines in a fast‑paced environment.

You will lead cross‑functional teams, engage with public sector and B2B partners, and drive end‑to‑end delivery from problem framing to launch and iteration.

Qualifications

• Product management experience in an early‑stage or fast‑moving startup environment.
• Hands‑on project management experience coordinating complex, multidisciplinary technical work
• A track record of shipping data intensive, machine learning, or technically complex products
• Experience owning a roadmap from problem definition through launch, adoption, and iteration
• Technical fluency across machine learning models, data pipelines, APIs, software architecture, and systems integrations
• Experience translating ambiguous scientific, technical, or customer requirements into executable work
• B2B product experience, ideally with enterprise, regulated, infrastructure, or asset intensive customers
• Experience conducting customer discovery and distinguishing scalable market needs from one‑off feature requests
• Strong written and verbal communication
• Comfort operating with broad ownership in an early‑stage company

Responsibilities

• Own the product strategy and roadmap for Vista
• Translate scientific and machine learning research into product requirements, project plans, milestones, and release schedules
• Coordinate work across science, engineering, software, operations, and commercial teams
• Manage scope, timelines, dependencies, risks, and competing priorities
• Pressure test model outputs, validation approaches, product assumptions, and operational trade‑offs
• Lead product discovery with wildfire agencies and prospective customers
• Help turn early pilots and customer‑specific deployments into a repeatable, scalable product
• Define the integrations, APIs, reporting, reliability, and onboarding capabilities required by enterprise customers
• Communicate progress, risks, roadmap decisions, and trade‑offs to leadership and external partners
• Maintain focus and momentum as priorities shift

Job description

Skyward Wildfire Technologies is building a first-of-its-kind platform for predicting and preventing lightning-ignited wildfires. Backed by more than C$12 million in seed funding, we are hiring a Technical Product Manager to own the roadmap for Vista, our machine learning-powered lightning and wildfire-risk forecasting platform.

This is not a conventional backlog management role. You will work across atmospheric science, machine learning, software, project delivery, and real world wildfire operations. Your job will be to turn complex research into reliable products and keep multidisciplinary teams moving on the unforgiving timelines of fire season.

The role

You will own the strategy, roadmap, and delivery of Skyward's forecasting products. You will work closely with atmospheric scientists, machine learning engineers, software engineers, field operators, business development, and executive leadership. You will also engage directly with public sector and B2B partners to understand their workflows, operational requirements, and barriers to adoption.

This role combines product leadership with hands‑on project management. You will be responsible for translating technical work into clear plans, coordinating dependencies, managing timelines and risks, and ensuring that important work gets shipped.

What you'll do

• Own the product strategy and roadmap for Vista
• Translate scientific and machine learning research into product requirements, project plans, milestones, and release schedules
• Coordinate work across science, engineering, software, operations, and commercial teams
• Manage scope, timelines, dependencies, risks, and competing priorities
• Pressure test model outputs, validation approaches, product assumptions, and operational trade‑offs
• Lead product discovery with wildfire agencies and prospective customers
• Help turn early pilots and customer‑specific deployments into a repeatable, scalable product
• Define the integrations, APIs, reporting, reliability, and onboarding capabilities required by enterprise customers
• Communicate progress, risks, roadmap decisions, and trade‑offs to leadership and external partners
• Maintain focus and momentum as priorities shift

What we're looking for

You are a deeply technical, high‑agency product leader who is also an effective project manager. You do not need to be an atmospheric scientist or machine learning engineer, but you must be technical enough to earn their trust, ask difficult questions, understand the answers, and make sound decisions.

Strong candidates will bring

• Product management experience in an early‑stage or fast‑moving startup environment
• Hands‑on project management experience coordinating complex, multidisciplinary technical work
• A track record of shipping data intensive, machine learning, or technically complex products
• Experience owning a roadmap from problem definition through launch, adoption, and iteration
• The ability to build clear plans, manage timelines and risks, and hold teams accountable without creating unnecessary bureaucracy
• Technical fluency across machine learning models, data pipelines, APIs, software architecture, and systems integrations
• Experience translating ambiguous scientific, technical, or customer requirements into executable work
• B2B product experience, ideally with enterprise, regulated, infrastructure, or asset intensive customers
• Experience conducting customer discovery and distinguishing scalable market needs from one‑off feature requests
• Strong written and verbal communication
• Comfort operating with broad ownership in an early‑stage company

Experience in wildfire, weather, geospatial technology, utilities, forestry, infrastructure, aviation, emergency management, or decision support software would be valuable, but is not required.

What this role is not

This is not a role for someone who wants to manage tickets from a distance. It is not purely product management or project management. You will be expected to understand the science, technology, users, and commercial context behind the product — and to help the team make difficult trade‑offs and ship.

What success looks like

In your first several months

• Develop a detailed understanding of Vista, its models, users, and operational applications
• Build strong working relationships across science, engineering, operations, and business development
• Establish a clear roadmap and delivery process tied to measurable technical and customer outcomes
• Identify the most important gaps between current research capabilities and dependable operational products
• Clarify the highest-value use cases across priority markets

Over time

• Help make Vista an indispensable operational tool for Skyward's partners
• Improve the reliability, usability, and scalability of Skyward's forecasting products
• Shorten the path from scientific research to production
• Help turn successful pilots into repeatable products and durable customer relationships
• Build the product foundation required to serve new regions and industries

Location and working model

This is a full‑time role. We strongly prefer someone who can work in a hybrid capacity in Vancouver, British Columbia. Exceptional candidates elsewhere in Canada will also be considered, particularly those able to collaborate across Pacific time zone working hours. Some travel may be required.

Skyward Wildfire Technologies is committed to building a team with diverse experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds. We encourage qualified candidates to apply even when their experience does not match every item listed above.