Business Development Lead (Remote)

As a Business Development Lead at Lightning Labs, you drive the go-to-market strategy and monetization for the Lightning Network, expanding its reach across enterprise, fintech, AI, and payment ecosystems. You translate Lightning's technical advantages-routing, liquidity settlement, Taproot Assets, stablecoins, and agentic payments-into concrete business outcomes for payment processors, exchanges, fintech companies, AI startups, and large merchants.

What you'll do

• Set and own high-level BD OKRs across target regions, verticals, and segments; work with the BD team to translate company strategy into a quarterly plan with measurable outcomes.
• Identify the most promising use cases and companies for Lightning, agentic payments, and stablecoins; prioritize accounts and partners with the highest network growth potential.
• Collaborate with product and engineering on roadmap priorities and feature timelines based on feedback from external customers and developers.
• Design pricing, packaging, and deal structures aligned to product value, such as volume-based, tiered, usage-based, or partner revenue shares.
• Personally lead and close strategic, multi-stakeholder deals with exchanges, AI companies, payment service providers, wallets, fintechs, miners, and enterprise adopters.
• Stand up a lightweight forecast and pipeline cadence in partnership with Finance, defining coverage, stage definitions, and velocity without turning the team into a quota-only sales organization.
• Source and prioritize net-new partners and channels; develop joint go-to-market initiatives with key ecosystem players such as processors, liquidity providers, compliance vendors, custody services, and infrastructure providers.
• Architect distribution flywheels connecting developer adoption, merchant enablement, and payment volume growth; unlock high-value corridors.
• Connect customers' business goals with the right technical integrations, integration partners, and liquidity resources.
• Craft executive-ready materials including narratives, pitch decks, RFPs, and board or partner updates that tie Lightning's capabilities to business impact.
• Represent Lightning Labs at senior-level meetings, conferences, and media or analyst engagements; contribute thought leadership that advances the category.

What you bring

• 7-10+ years in business development, strategic partnerships, and/or solution-oriented enterprise sales at a fintech, payments, AI, or other relevant technology company.
• A demonstrated track record of crafting go-to-market strategy and closing complex, multi-party commercial agreements.
• Strong technical and product fluency: you can translate bitcoin and Lightning concepts (routing, liquidity, settlement, Taproot Assets, stablecoins, agentic payments) into clear commercial outcomes.
• Fluency with frontier large language models and AI tools and a willingness to integrate them at every level.
• Comfort leading a small team and operating as a senior individual contributor.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication; confidence engaging with C-suite, product, legal, and technical stakeholders.
• An analytical, data-driven approach to decision-making; comfort building ROI and total-cost-of-ownership models and deal economics.
• Ability to work autonomously across time zones and willingness to travel for key customers and events.
• Willingness to work on US time zones from a global remote location.

Nice to have

• Public writings or talks on global payments, bitcoin, Lightning, AI, or stablecoins.
• A deep network among exchanges, AI companies, payment service providers, wallets, fintechs, and payment facilitators, especially in LATAM, Asia, or Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Experience launching or scaling developer-led distribution and partner channels.
• Familiarity with compliance considerations in crypto and payments and how they affect go-to-market strategy.

About Lightning Labs

Lightning Labs builds the Lightning Network, a layer-2 protocol that brings bitcoin to the next billion people by enabling fast, low-cost payments across enterprise and fintech ecosystems globally.