Business Development Lead (Remote)

Lightning Labs; Palo Alto (CA); Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Lightning Labs is seeking a Business Development Lead to accelerate bitcoin adoption by expanding Lightning’s reach across enterprise and fintech ecosystems. You’ll focus on go-to-market strategy, monetization, and high-leverage selling to payment processors, exchanges, fintechs, AI startups, agents, and large merchants.

The role requires a strong track record in enterprise sales and strategy at a fintech, payments, AI, or infrastructure company, deep familiarity with bitcoin and the Lightning

Qualifications

• 7–10+ years in business development, strategic partnerships, and enterprise sales.
• Proven track record crafting GTM strategy and closing multi-party commercial deals.
• Strong technical understanding of bitcoin/Lightning concepts and how to translate them into business outcomes.
• Excellent written and verbal communication with C-suite and technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Set and own BD OKRs across regions and segments with measurable outcomes.
• Lead and close strategic, multi-stakeholder deals with exchanges, PSPs, wallets, fintechs, and enterprises.
• Design pricing/packaging structures aligned to product value; forecast and pipeline cadence with Finance.
• Source new partners and channels; develop joint GTM with key ecosystem players.
• Craft executive-ready materials and represent Lightning Labs at senior-level meetings.

Skills

Enterprise sales

BD strategy

GTM strategy

Executive communication

Partnership development

Tools

CRM

Salesforce

Job description

Lightning Labs is looking for a Business Development Lead who is passionate about bringing bitcoin to the next billion people by expanding Lightning’s reach across enterprise and fintech ecosystems. This role will focus on go-to-market strategy, monetization, and high-leverage selling, translating Lightning’s technical advantages into concrete business outcomes for payment processors, exchanges, fintech companies, AI startups, agents, and large merchants. The ideal candidate has a strong track record in enterprise sales and strategy at a fintech, payments, AI, or infrastructure company, deep familiarity with bitcoin and the Lightning Network (including stablecoin use cases), and exceptional executive communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Strategy & OKRs

  • 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 given feedback from external customers and developers.

• Monetization and Sales

  • Design pricing, packaging, and deal structures aligned to product value (e.g., volume-based, tiered, usage-based, partner revenue shares).

  • Personally lead and close strategic, multi-stakeholder deals with exchanges, AI companies, PSPs, wallets, fintechs, miners, and enterprise adopters.

  • Stand up a lightweight forecast and pipeline cadence (coverage, stage definitions, velocity, win/loss) in partnership with Finance—without turning the team into a quota-only sales org.

• Developer Community and Market Development

  • Source and prioritize net-new partners and channels; develop joint GTM with key ecosystem players (processors, liquidity providers, compliance vendors, custody, and infra).

  • Architect distribution flywheels (developer adoption → merchant enablement → payment volume) and unlock high-value corridors.

  • Connect customers’ business goals with the right technical integrations, integration partners, and liquidity resources.

• Executive Communications

  • Craft crisp, executive-ready materials (narratives, pitch decks, requests for proposals (RFPs), board/partner updates) that tie Lightning’s capabilities to business impact.

  • Represent Lightning Labs at senior-level meetings, conferences, and media/analyst engagements; contribute thought leadership that advances the category.

Location

Global and remote. Must be willing to work on US time zones.

Requirements

• 7–10+ years in business development, strategic partnerships, and/or solution-oriented enterprise sales at a fintech, payments, AI, or other relevant tech company.

• Demonstrated track record of crafting GTM strategy and closing complex, multi-party commercial agreements.

• Strong technical and product fluency: able to translate bitcoin/Lightning concepts (routing, liquidity, settlement, Taproot Assets/stablecoins, agentic payments) into clear commercial outcomes.

• Fluency with frontier LLMs and AI tools and willingness to integrate them at every level.

• Comfortable leading a small team and operating as a senior individual contributor.

• Exceptional written and verbal communication; confident with C-suite, product, legal, and technical stakeholders.

• Analytical, data-driven decision-maker; comfortable building ROI/TCO models and deal economics.

• Ability to work autonomously across time zones; willing to travel for key customers and events.

Preferred

• Public writings or talks on global payments, bitcoin/Lightning, AI, or stablecoins.

• Deep network among exchanges, AI companies, PSPs, 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/payments and how they affect GTM.