Partnerships Lead, Blockchain Infrastructure

About the role

This role involves owning the complete lifecycle of strategic infrastructure partnerships for OP Labs, which develops the Optimism network. The Partnerships Lead will focus on key areas such as on/off-ramps, payments, compliance, and liquidity infrastructure. This includes sourcing potential partners, negotiating deals, overseeing integrations, and managing ongoing relationships to support the growth of the OP Stack ecosystem.

A core part of the work involves collaborating with the Product team to develop and launch new offerings that leverage third-party technology, particularly in areas like privacy and capital gains tax (CGT) solutions. The Partnerships Lead will be responsible for creating and maintaining the strategic roadmap for the infrastructure partner ecosystem, ensuring alignment with company goals.

Success in this position means effectively driving work across internal teams and external partners to deliver measurable impact. This requires clear communication of ecosystem developments, potential blockers, and strategic updates to executive leadership. The ideal candidate will demonstrate a strong ability to manage multi-quarter partnership roadmaps and bring clarity to complex situations.

The listed salary for this position is between $200,000 and $300,000 USD.

Skills that matter here

• Partnership & Business Acumen: This role requires deep experience in managing and scaling strategic partnerships within the crypto infrastructure space, including deal structuring and negotiation.
• Product & Technical Fluency: The Partnerships Lead needs to understand blockchain infrastructure and DeFi concepts to engage effectively with engineers and make informed build-partner-buy decisions.
• Execution & Communication: This skill is essential for driving cross-functional projects, ensuring integrations are shipped, and clearly communicating strategies and updates to all stakeholders.
• Systems-level reasoning: Understanding network effects, liquidity loops, and value exchange is crucial for structuring effective partnerships within the ecosystem.
• Strategic product thinking: The role involves making decisions about whether to build, partner, or buy solutions and conducting product discovery with partners.
• Commercial skills in deal structuring and negotiation: This is critical for balancing partner economics with the broader ecosystem objectives in multi-party or multi-chain deals.

Who this role suits

• A self-starter who can manage the entire partnership process from identification to integration and ongoing management.
• Someone with a strong background in crypto infrastructure partnerships, comfortable with complex deal negotiations.
• An individual who can bridge technical and business discussions, working effectively with both product teams and engineers.
• A clear communicator capable of articulating strategy and progress to both internal teams and executive leadership.

From the employer

What are the role responsibilities?

• Own the end-to-end lifecycle (sourcing, deal negotiation, integration, and partner management) for critical ecosystem infrastructure partnerships, including:
• On/off ramps and payments.
• Compliance, insurance, and risk infrastructure.
• Market makers, liquidity infrastructure, and selected CEX relationships.
• Stablecoin and fiat-rail related partnerships.
• Collaborate with the Product team to define and launch new products that leverage third-party capabilities/technology, specifically in areas like Privacy and CGT.
• Create and own the strategic roadmap for this section of the infrastructure partner ecosystem.
• Proactively communicate key ecosystem developments, potential partnership blockers, and strategic updates to executive leadership.

What skills do you bring?

• Partnership & Business Acumen:
• Deep experience managing and scaling strategic partnerships in the crypto infrastructure space, with a track record of owning complex categories end-to-end.
• Strong commercial skills in deal structuring and negotiation for multi-party or multi-chain deals, balancing partner economics with ecosystem objectives.
• Systems-level reasoning, including an understanding of network effects, liquidity loops, and value exchange within the ecosystem.
• Product & Technical Fluency:
• Domain technical fluency (infra or DeFi), comfortable engaging with protocol and infra engineers.
• Strategic product thinking (build-partner-buy decisions) and the ability to run product discovery with partners.
• Execution & Communication:
• High-agency cross-functional operator, proficient at driving work across internal teams and external partners to ship integrations and create measurable impact.
• Clear written and verbal communicator, able to write concise strategy documents and integration plans to keep all stakeholders aligned.
• Proven ability to manage multi-quarter partnership roadmaps and drive clarity in ambiguous environments.
• A genuine passion for blockchain technology, decentralization, and the future of open systems.

What will you like about us?

• We take care of our employees. Competitive compensation, fully paid medical, dental, and vision, and a 4% 401K match.
• We take pride in the accomplishments of our teammates and support each other in doing the best work of our careers.
• Our team is a diverse group of people from varied backgrounds. We cherish our eclecticism and consider it a great strength.
• We’re remote-friendly with an NYC office where we like to collaborate in person.
• We think long-term. Our founders have been scaling Ethereum since 2015.