Product Leader · Climate Tech · Bozeman, MT

Chad Klein

I turn messy data and AI ambition
into platforms that do good.

12+ years building enterprise data infrastructure, customer‑facing AI interfaces, and complex integrations across regulated B2B SaaS — currently leading AI and data platform strategy at Tyler Technologies, serving 1M+ daily users across public-sector. Background and education in geospatial data and earth sciences and driven to make an impact in climate tech.

See My Work
About

Geospatial roots. AI platform depth. Climate mission.

I started in earth science — studying snow hydrology and geospatial systems at Montana State University. That grounding in environmental data, field conditions, and physical systems has shaped how I think about every platform I've built since.

My early career was hands-on geospatial and GIS work — building and owning digital map databases at HERE Maps, shipping cartographic systems at Google Maps, and learning how to wrangle large, messy spatial datasets with Python and SQL. From there I moved into product, taking that data instinct into fleet telematics, then enterprise infrastructure, and now AI platforms at scale.

At Tyler Technologies, I lead a team of six PMs and own the platform layer — data pipelines, AI orchestration, evaluation frameworks, and governance — for a portfolio serving 1M+ daily users. I care about the details: architecture decisions, cost models, how a feature actually gets adopted in the field.

As a Climatebase Fellow I learned that I want to spend the next chapter applying everything I've learned about AI, data infrastructure, and platform strategy to climate and environmental problems. That means working at the intersection of rigorous science, large-scale data, and AI systems that are actually deployed and used.

12+
Years in product
1M+
Daily users served
40+
Product lines supported
$1M
Annual infra savings driven
Experience

Where I've built things.

  • Own the vision and strategy for Tyler's data platform, infrastructure, and central services under the CTO organization — setting direction across the full stack that the rest of the product portfolio builds on.
  • Shipping a conversational, natural-language analytics platform that replaces SSRS, PowerBI, and Tableau equivalents across Tyler's portfolio — non-technical users querying enterprise data without SQL or report-builder expertise.
  • Built and own Tyler's enterprise data repository — a unified system that pulls line-of-business data from across the product portfolio into a single layer, enabling cross-product integrations, advanced reporting, and the data infrastructure that backs AI-driven workflows.
  • Leading a team of 6 PMs across platform, data, AI, and infrastructure — responsible for hiring, performance management, and cross-functional alignment with engineering, security, and legal.
  • Introduced AI-powered workflows into the PM organization itself — cutting discovery and roadmap planning cycle time by giving PMs reusable tooling instead of starting from scratch each quarter.
  • Delivering all of the above inside CJIS, FedRAMP, and GDPR constraints, in close coordination with engineering, security, and legal.
  • Spearheaded platform modernization and infra optimization resulting in ~$1M in annual savings, including $500K+ through scalable right-sizing.
  • Delivered a real-time ingestion and query architecture reducing data latency from 15 minutes to near real-time and improving average query performance by 45%.
  • Launched early AI platform capabilities — model integration, orchestration, and governance patterns — setting the groundwork for enterprise AI adoption.
  • Led complex integration initiatives unifying disparate data sources and product systems into a cohesive enterprise data layer supporting cross-product analytics at scale.
  • Led evolution from customer-specific telematics solutions into a scalable productized data services platform, transitioning from batch pipelines to real-time streaming.
  • Defined and shipped a high-volume ingestion and analytics platform supporting real-time vehicle diagnostics, telemetry insights, and mission-critical fleet operations.
  • Built customer-facing integrations and APIs enabling third-party platform interoperability and accelerated go-to-market across enterprise fleet accounts.
  • Co-invented a patented method for facilitating investigation of expense card fraud (US Patent 11,410,177).
  • Owned digital maps database for the Northwestern United States; planned and executed data collection with multiple GPS tools.
  • Leveraged Python and SQL to query and manipulate large spatial databases.
  • Piloted specialty projects at regional scale that were subsequently rolled out globally.
  • Created and edited maps for Google Maps products; developed cartographic policy piloted regionally and rolled out globally.
  • Managed a specialized team to investigate and debug feature-rendering issues before production pushes.
  • Used SQL to analyze productivity and quality metrics across cooperative global teams.
Skills

What I bring to the table.

Product Leadership

  • Portfolio & roadmap strategy
  • Team building & org design
  • Stakeholder alignment
  • OKR & metric frameworks
  • Agile / Scrum (CSM certified)

AI & Agentic Systems

  • AI platform strategy
  • Agent orchestration & automation
  • Model evaluation & guardrails
  • Observability & governance
  • Conversational / NL interfaces

Data Platforms

  • Streaming architectures
  • Real-time ingestion & query
  • Platform economics & cost optimization
  • Enterprise data layers
  • Cloud: AWS, GCP

Geospatial & Climate

  • GIS & spatial data systems
  • Earth & environmental science
  • Geospatial Python & SQL
  • Snow hydrology & remote sensing
  • Climate tech & Climatebase Fellow
Cohort 8 Fellow climatebase.org/fellowship

The Climatebase Fellowship is a selective program that connects senior technology professionals with the organizations and knowledge needed to make a meaningful impact in the climate sector. Fellows gain deep exposure to climate science, the climate tech landscape, and the role AI and data systems play in accelerating solutions at scale.

Class of 2011

B.S. Environmental Science with a focus in Snow Geography and GIS from Montana State University. Coursework spanning ecology, geomorphology, geospatial analysis, snow hydrology, and remote sensing.

Projects

Things I've shipped.

Zonar Systems · Patent

Expense Card Fraud Detection

Co-invented a system and method for facilitating investigation of expense card fraud. Led the product ownership and worked directly with engineering and legal teams through the patent process.

US Patent 11,410,177
Montana State University · Research

Snow Water Equivalent Instrumentation Development

Undergraduate Scholars Research Program grant recipient. Calibrated a soil moisture probe for measuring snow water equivalent in mountain snowpack — combining field instrumentation, geospatial data, and earth science methods to study a critical freshwater resource.

Academic Research · 2011
Side Project · Live

TickerYeti

Stock research dashboard that pulls live prices, 3 years of financials, and valuation metrics for any ticker — no login, no ads. One click opens Yahoo Finance, Seeking Alpha, SEC EDGAR, and Finviz simultaneously.

tickeryeti.com
Tyler Technologies · Enterprise

Enterprise AI Platform

Conversational NL analytics platform replacing SSRS/PowerBI/Tableau equivalents across Tyler's portfolio. Includes agent orchestration, model evaluation, guardrails, and observability for 1M+ daily users.

Internal Platform
Tyler Technologies · Infrastructure

Real-Time Data Platform

Modernized batch data pipeline to real-time streaming architecture. Reduced latency from 15 minutes to near real-time and improved query performance by 45% while saving ~$1M annually in infrastructure costs.

Internal Platform
Zonar Systems · Platform

Fleet Telematics Data Platform

Evolved customer-specific telematics solutions into a scalable productized data services platform. Transitioned from batch pipelines to real-time streaming for mission-critical fleet analytics.

Internal Platform
Contact

Let's talk product and climate.

I'm currently looking for my next role at the intersection of AI, data, and climate impact — with organizations applying AI to scientific, environmental, or high-stakes societal problems. If you're building in climate tech or AI research, I'd love to connect.

linkedin.com/in/chadklein github.com/mountainyeti hello@mountainstache.com