Partnerships Lead, Defi

Role and Responsibilities

• Own relationships with top-tier DeFi protocol teams, serving as the primary point of contact, running quarterly business reviews, proactively removing blockers, and ensuring those DeFi partnerships can deliver on joint OP and partner objectives.
• Contribute to OP Mainnet and the OP Stack DeFi strategy and execution, by owning the asset pipeline, and working with partners to create new markets, vaults, and sustainable DeFi yield strategies.
• Design and deploy milestone-based incentive programs, track grant ROI, and work with internal partners (Growth, Data, Product) to optimize incentive strategies to drive towards sustainable business outcomes.
• Lead strategic initiatives and thought leadership for the OP Stack DeFi ecosystem (e.g., create and deploy playbooks for TVL growth across OP Stack chain partners), build narrative and content to showcase the ecosystem’s growth and wins, represent Optimism at industry events, and surface emerging trends and opportunities.

What Success Looks Like

3+ OP Stack chains with a $1B TVL in the next 12 months

Skills Required

• 4–7 years in DeFi partnerships / protocol ops experience
• Deep understanding of the EVM DeFi ecosystem including DeFi protocol mechanics and onchain behaviors of various user archetypes from yield-seekers, liquidity providers, farmers/degens, to institutions.
• Demonstrated experience with tokenomics and incentive programs, with sharp business intuition to choose incentive campaigns that drive durable outcomes.
• Hands-on product/technical fluency, obsessed with understanding how DeFi protocols, apps, and the infrastructure required for successful DeFi ecosystem.
• Strong cross-functional execution and negotiation skills.
• Excellent written/verbal communication — exec-level presence.