Head of Business Development – Shelby Platform

Aptos; United States; Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

100% insurance premium coverage for US

Equipment of your choice

Flexible vacation time

Competitive Salary

Protocol Token Grants

401k matching (US)

In-person and digital events

Job summary

Aptos seeks a Head of Business Development for Shelby, a decentralized storage network, to lead the go-to-market and commercial foundation of the ecosystem. You will own partnerships, strategic planning, and market development to drive adoption and revenue from design partners, pilots, and lighthouse use cases.

You will collaborate with product, engineering, and marketing to ensure feedback shapes roadmap and positioning while scaling a BD organization for a high-growth protocol.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in business development, partnerships, or strategy roles, ideally within Web3, storage, cloud, or related infrastructure.
• Proven track record of originating, structuring, and closing complex partnerships.
• Strong network across Web3 protocols, enterprise technology, and/or AI ecosystems.
• Deep understanding of storage, blockchain, or adjacent infrastructure (compute, data, cloud).
• Entrepreneurial mindset with experience scaling early-stage projects from zero to one.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and relationship-building skills.

Responsibilities

• Go-to-Market Strategy: Define and execute Shelby’s BD strategy across AI, media, and enterprise verticals. Shelby is built for decentralized as well as centralized systems.
• Partnerships & Ecosystem Growth: Identify, negotiate, and close high-impact partnerships with protocols, storage providers, enterprises, and large ecosystem players.
• Revenue & Adoption: Drive adoption of Shelby’s storage solutions by securing design partners, pilot customers, and lighthouse use cases.
• Market Development: Build a pipeline of opportunities, from strategic accounts to grassroots developer initiatives, balancing near-term wins with long-term ecosystem growth.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Work closely with product, engineering, and marketing to ensure commercial feedback informs roadmap, positioning, and technical priorities.
• Team Building: Lay the foundation for a future BD/growth organization as Shelby scales.

Skills

Business development

Partnerships

Strategy

Negotiation

Relationship-building

Web3

Storage

Education

Bachelor's degree in Business or related field

Tools

CRM systems

Data analytics tools

Job description

Aptos is a people-first blockchain on a mission to help billions of people achieve universal and fair access to decentralized assets in a safe and scalable way.

Founded by some of the original creators and maintainers that researched, designed, and built the Diem blockchain to serve this purpose, we have dedicated several years toward this mission. We believe the open-source Diem technology we have developed is an important foundation of a safe and scalable web3 world where everyone has more equitable opportunities to grow and access financial assets with lower fees and fewer intermediaries.

Aptos (Ohlone for 'The People') encompasses our mission and ethos for why we build.

About Shelby

Shelby is a decentralized storage network, purpose-built to deliver secure, high-performance, and developer-friendly data infrastructure. Shelby’s goal is to bring data driven revenue on-chain. Shelby can serve any chain and even non-blockchain workloads. Designed for builders, Shelby uses on-chain smart contracts to coordinate and manage storage activity, ensuring full transparency and trustless integrity. Shelby enables developers to store, retrieve data at the same performance as big clouds, while being multiple times cheaper on egress costs. Whether powering DePIN protocols, gaming platforms, AI models, or analytics engines, Shelby is redefining what high performance, read optimized storage can do—bridging protocol-grade architecture with production-ready performance. Built by the collaboration of Aptos and Jump Crypto, Shelby engineers have experience building Facebook infrastructure and Jump’s HFT stack.

The Role

Shelby’s north star metrics are - a) Revenue generated by the protocol and b) Revenue the protocol helps generate. To drive these metrics forward, we’re seeking a Head of Business Development to drive Shelby’s go-to-market motion, own strategic partnerships, and build the commercial foundation of our decentralized storage ecosystem. This is a rare zero-to-one leadership role where you will shape the business trajectory of a protocol from the ground up.

Responsibilities

• Go-to-Market Strategy: Define and execute Shelby’s BD strategy across AI, media, and enterprise verticals. Shelby is built for decentralized as well as centralized systems.
• Partnerships & Ecosystem Growth: Identify, negotiate, and close high-impact partnerships with protocols, storage providers, enterprises, and large ecosystem players.
• Revenue & Adoption: Drive adoption of Shelby’s storage solutions by securing design partners, pilot customers, and lighthouse use cases.
• Market Development: Build a pipeline of opportunities, from strategic accounts to grassroots developer initiatives, balancing near-term wins with long-term ecosystem growth.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Work closely with product, engineering, and marketing to ensure commercial feedback informs roadmap, positioning, and technical priorities.
• Team Building: Lay the foundation for a future BD/growth organization as Shelby scales.

What We’re Looking For

• 7+ years of experience in business development, partnerships, or strategy roles, ideally within Web3, storage, cloud, or related infrastructure.
• Proven track record of originating, structuring, and closing complex partnerships.
• Strong network across Web3 protocols, enterprise technology, and/or AI ecosystems.
• Deep understanding of storage, blockchain, or adjacent infrastructure (compute, data, cloud).
• Entrepreneurial mindset with experience scaling early-stage projects from zero to one.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and relationship-building skills.

Why Shelby

• Define the commercial future of a new protocol from day one.
• Work alongside a world-class founding team with experience scaling Aptos and other industry-defining technologies.
• Shape how high performance storage powers decentralized systems, AI, and the next wave of internet applications.

Our Benefits

• 100% insurance premium coverage for medical, dental, and vision for you and your dependents (US Employees)
• Equipment of your choice
• Flexible vacation time, 11 holidays, and floating company days off
• Competitive Salary
• Protocol Token Grants
• 401k matching (US Employees)
• Fun and inclusive in-person and digital events

Aptos is committed to diversity in the workplace

Aptos is committed to diversity in the workplace, and we’re proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not hire on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, citizenship, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, parental status, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, or any other basis protected by local, state or federal law. All employment is decided based on qualifications, merit, and business need.

We are committed to providing a safe and secure hiring process for all applicants. Unfortunately, there are individuals who may attempt to impersonate Aptos or our employees for fraudulent purposes.

To protect yourself, please be aware of the following:

• We never ask you for payment of any kind during the application or onboarding process, including fees for background checks, training, or equipment.
• We always communicate with you using our official company email domain.
• We never request your personal financial information, such as your social security number or bank account details, during the initial application stages or via email or a video/voice call when onboarding.