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Piston
A cardless payment network for commercial fuelling
Last verified September 14, 2026 · Updated daily
What Piston is building
Piston removed the fuel card. That is the entire product decision, and everything else follows from it. A commercial fleet's driver opens the Piston app at the pump, scans a QR code, and the transaction is authorised at the point of sale against a specific driver, a specific vehicle, a geolocation and the fleet's own policy — before any fuel flows. There is no plastic to steal, skim or lend to a friend, because there is no plastic. The hard part was never the app. It was the acceptance network. Piston built point-of-sale integrations that now cover about 95% of US merchant fuel sites, and is live at more than 2,000 stations across 48 states. That is the asset: a payment network that the two sides actually want for different reasons. Fleets get real-time visibility into fuel spend tied to a driver and a truck instead of a card number and a month-end statement. Stations get commercial fuel volume at lower transaction cost than the legacy card rails charge them. Two AI products sit on top of the transaction stream, and both exist because the authorisation happens before the sale rather than after it. Piston Guard does real-time anomaly detection — the fraud check is a gate, not a report. Piston Analytics Agent turns the same per-driver, per-vehicle data into spend analysis that fleet managers previously reconstructed by hand from card statements. Vikram Sekhon and Shivam Shah both ran their own commercial trucking fleets before building this, which shows in the product's shape. The site is organised by fleet type rather than by feature: last-mile operators including FedEx Ground ISPs, trade fleets of service technicians, and over-the-road long-haul. That is how a fleet owner thinks about their own business, and it is not how a payments company usually builds a website.
Why this matters
US commercial fuel purchasing is a market above $900 billion a year that still runs on physical cards, and fleet operators lose an estimated 5-15% of their annual fuel budget to fraudulent purchases on those cards. Piston puts its own savings figure at roughly 7-8% of fuel waste eliminated. When the fraud rate is measured in percentage points of a $900B category, a network that authorises per-driver and per-vehicle before the pump unlocks is not a convenience play. It is arithmetic. The growth numbers support the read that the acceptance network has crossed a threshold. Payment volume grew 8x year over year. The merchant network expanded 40x in twelve months. Customer retention sits at 98%. For comparison, Piston was live at around 800 stations across 25 states serving 120+ fleets at its seed; it is now 2,000+ stations across 48 states. The seed built a product; this round scales a network, and networks get harder to dislodge every month. Competition is arriving from adjacent directions — ONRAMP and Relay Payments partnered with Love's Travel Stops, and Circle K shipped its own fleet payment app in 2025. Piston's stated plan is full regional coverage within 18 months and then expansion beyond fuel into broader logistics payments. The fuel network is the wedge; logistics commerce is the actual ambition.
Open roles at Piston
6 positions we're tracking. Roles are re-checked daily and removed when filled.
Backend Developer (Kolkata, West Bengal, India)
First seen today
Director of Business Development & Partnerships (US, hybrid remote/on-site)
First seen today
Mid-Market Customer Success Manager (Lehi, Utah)
First seen today
Account Executive — OTR Fleet / Trade Fleet / Network Blitz (Lehi, Utah)
First seen today
SDR — Fleet, OTR, Contractor and Network teams (Lehi, Utah)
First seen today
Administrative Assistant (Cupertino, California)
First seen today
Know when Piston is hiring before anyone else
A role stays uncontested for about four days. Here's the window — and where we put you in it.
From $9/month, cancel any time.
Watching Piston
0 applicantsRole spotted & verified
1You get the alert
1You've applied
~8Hits the job boards
250+Hiring outlook
Explicit and verifiable. The funding coverage states the capital will fund senior leadership hires across key areas of the business, and the company's Greenhouse board currently lists 17 open roles across three sites — a Backend Developer in Kolkata, a Director of Business Development & Partnerships (US hybrid), a Mid-Market Customer Success Manager plus a full AE and SDR bench in Lehi, Utah, and an Administrative Assistant in Cupertino. This is a company hiring a go-to-market army right now.
Working at Piston
Piston is a Tech company based in Cupertino, USA. For a Tech company this size, the reality is opportunity to shape your role based on the company stage.
Most Piston jobs are based in Cupertino, USA.
How to actually get hired at Piston
Why applying the normal way doesn't work
Piston uses an ATS, but referrals still come first. Cold applications aren't ignored — they're just behind referrals, sourced candidates, and recruiter picks.
Who to contact at Piston
What to show them
Build a small pre-authorisation engine and show it under adversarial conditions. Given a driver, a vehicle, a station, a GPS fix and a fleet policy, decide allow or deny in the time a pump is willing to wait — then write up the failure modes that actually matter at a truck stop: stale location, a driver in the wrong truck, an offline terminal, a retry that must not double-charge. Idempotency and the offline path are where this role lives. One page of design notes plus running code beats a polished dashboard.
A cold email that works at Piston
What Piston screens for
FPV Ventures led, with Spark Capital and Pear VC both returning — two consecutive rounds of insider conviction rather than a new lead arriving to reprice the story. What they are funding is coverage: 95% of US merchant fuel sites are already technically integratable, 2,000+ stations are actually live, and the stated target is every US region within 18 months. That gap between integrated and live is the whole job, and it is why the Lehi board is stacked with AEs and SDRs split by fleet segment. The candidate edge here is unusual. This is not an AI-research company where the hard-to-find skill is a research background; the scarce person at Piston is someone who can talk credibly to a 40-truck fleet owner or a station operator about their margins. If that is you, the competition for these seats is a fraction of what it would be at a comparably funded AI startup.
Don't send a generic CV to Piston. Mirror the job posting's language to get past automated screening.
Don't make these mistakes
Do not pitch Piston as a fintech. Vikram and Shivam operated their own trucking fleets before starting this; the payments rail is the means, and diesel, drivers and dispatch are the subject. A note about disrupting the payments stack, embedded finance, or interchange economics will land as someone who has never stood at a truck stop. Equally, do not explain fuel card fraud to them in general terms — they lived it, and the 5-15% number is in their own press. Skip the Silicon Valley framing entirely: the commercial centre of gravity is Lehi, Utah, and the people closing deals are talking to fleet owners and station operators, not to a developer audience. Lead with something operational — a route, a fuel-spend variance you had to reconcile, a station relationship you built, a specific reason a fleet manager would or would not adopt a QR flow at the pump in winter with gloves on.
Mistakes that kill Piston applications
At people, a copy-paste CV is immediately obvious. It's an instant no.
Lead with their problem, not your ambition. Piston is focused on US commercial fuel purchasing is a market above $900 billion a year that still runs on physical cards, and fleet operators lose an estimated 5-15% of their annual fuel budget to fraudulent purchases on those cards — show you understand that.
Don't apply and wait. The median Tech application gets no response ever. One follow-up at day five roughly doubles reply rates.
Applying to Piston? Get the contact, not the form.
The Piston interview process
4 stages · 14 days typical · take-home: no · modelled from similar companies
We don't yet have verified candidate reports for Piston. What follows is the typical process for a -person Tech company — treat it as a model, not confirmed detail.
Interview stages
Recruiter Screen
Phone or video · 30 min
Basic qualification and logistics
Recruiter or HR
Hiring Manager Interview
Video call · 45 min
Role fit and experience deep-dive
Hiring manager
Technical/Functional Round
Video call · 60 min
Skills assessment and problem-solving
Team members
Final Round
In-person or video · 60 min
Culture fit and cross-functional alignment
Senior leadership
Piston interview timeline
At days, Piston's process is about average than typical for Tech (14 days at this size).
Interviewed at Piston?
Tell us how it went — stages, questions, timeline. Takes 90 seconds and it's how this page stays accurate for the next person.
Submit your Piston interview experience →Piston jobs, frequently asked questions
How many jobs does Piston have open?
Piston currently has 6 open roles, last verified September 2026.
Does Piston hire remotely?
Piston doesn't have remote openings at the moment. All roles are in Cupertino, USA.
What roles is Piston hiring for?
Piston is hiring across Engineering, Product, Marketing, Sales, Other. The most recent opening is Backend Developer (Kolkata, West Bengal, India).
How do I apply for a job at Piston?
Apply directly through the links above, or read our guide on how to actually get hired at Piston.
Does Piston respond to cold emails?
We're still collecting cold email data for Piston.
Who is the hiring manager at Piston?
At this size, hiring is usually run by the hiring manager.
How competitive is it to get hired at Piston?
Expect 100-250 applicants in the first two weeks for Tech roles at this size. Apply within 72 hours for best odds.
How many rounds is the Piston interview?
4 stages: Recruiter Screen, Hiring Manager Interview, Technical/Functional Round, Final Round.
Is the Piston interview hard?
It concentrates on relevant experience and culture fit rather than abstract puzzles. The stage candidates find hardest is Final Round.
Does Piston give a take-home task?
No, Piston does not include a take-home stage.
How long does Piston take to get back to you?
Around 14 days across the full process.
What should I prepare for the Piston interview?
Prepare for relevant experience and culture fit. A -person startup wants proof you can ship, not that you can whiteboard.
Where is Piston based?
Piston is headquartered in Cupertino, USA.
Get Piston roles before they're posted
A role stays uncontested for about four days. Here's the window — and where we put you in it.
From $9/month, cancel any time.
Watching Piston
0 applicantsRole spotted & verified
1You get the alert
1You've applied
~8Hits the job boards
250+