Head of DeFi

Monad Foundation; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Monad Foundation is seeking a Head of DeFi to drive growth, strategy, and hands-on execution across the Monad network. You will own the DeFi roadmap, advise builders on protocol design, oversee asset onboarding, and deploy disciplined incentives to scale TVL and throughput.

You will lead a player-coach team, engage with institutional partners, and translate on-chain yield opportunities into strategic initiatives. This role is NYC-focused, demanding strong leadership and deep DeFi expertise.

Qualifications

• Proven track record in driving growth across DeFi protocols.
• Ability to translate DeFi concepts into institutional terms.
• Strong network with whales, funds, and blue-chip founders.
• Proven leadership with high-trust teams.

Responsibilities

• Own DeFi growth strategy for the Monad network across lending, DEXs, stablecoins, RWAs, and yield infrastructure.
• Execute end-to-end asset and protocol onboarding with oracles, liquidators, DEX pools, curators, and bridges.
• Advise DeFi builders deploying on the Monad network with actionable feedback on mechanics and market positioning.
• Activate a broad network of whales and blue-chip founders to bootstrap liquidity and traction.
• Bridge DeFi and TradFi/Fintech, translating yield opportunities for institutional executives.
• Drive incentive strategy to maximize durable TVL per spend and avoid mercenary capital.
• Manage a small DeFi specialist team (2–3 people) with clear priorities and execution tempo.

Skills

DeFi growth

TVL growth

Executive communication

Network of investors

Strategic planning

Leadership

Solidity familiarity

Job description

The Monad Foundation is a team of dedicated ecosystem and community builders who are on a mission to massively grow the impact of decentralized tech. We believe that the Monad blockchain—the performant and parallel EVM Layer 1—will help decentralized apps eat the world.

The Role

Monad Foundation, a core contributor to the Monad protocol, is looking for a Head of DeFi to lead the strategy, relationships, and hands-on execution that grows DeFi across the Monad network. This is a player-coach role: you\'ll set the roadmap and get into the weeds, advising builders on protocol design, orchestrating asset onboarding, deploying incentives with discipline, and ensuring the DeFi stack on Monad is robust and capital-efficient.

You should be the person who can explain how any top protocol on Monad makes money, open a Monad-native protocol\'s frontend and produce a sharp assessment of what\'s working and what isn\'t, and then get on a call with a TradFi executive and explain why on-chain yield infrastructure matters. You hold the full DeFi picture in your head, and you turn that knowledge into TVL, volume, and fees.

What You Will Do

• Own DeFi growth strategy for the Monad network. You will prioritize bets across lending, DEXs, stablecoins, RWAs, and yield infrastructure, measured by TVL, volume, stablecoin market cap, RWA market cap, and fees generated.

• Execute end-to-end asset and protocol onboarding. You will coordinate across oracles, liquidators, DEX pool setup, curators, and bridging providers.

• Advise DeFi builders deploying on the Monad network. With high-conviction, you will provide actionable feedback on protocol mechanics, product gaps, and market positioning.

• Activate your network of whales, liquid funds, curators, and blue-chip DeFi founders to kickstart early liquidity and protocol traction.

• Bridge DeFi and TradFi/Fintech. You will represent the Foundation with senior institutional executives, translating yield generation opportunities (e.g., Morpho vaults on the Monad network) into strategic terms they act on.

• Drive incentive strategy. You will form and defend opinions on which initiatives attract durable TVL per unit of spend versus which produce mercenary capital.

• Manage a team of 2–3 DeFi specialists. You will set priorities, maintain execution tempo, and build a culture of rigor and bias for action.

Who You Are

• DeFi-fluent operator. You have a track record of driving measurable growth in TVL, liquidity, or protocol adoption. You understand value flows across lending (Aave, Morpho, Euler), CDPs, DEXs, and yield-bearing stablecoins — and can explain what each category needs to get right to win.

• Opinionated on asset quality and risk. You can research a new interest-bearing asset and quickly assess bridging mechanics, liquidity depth, redemption windows, reserve transparency, and issuer controls.

• Deep, pre-existing network. With a network among whales, liquid crypto-native funds, DeFi curators, and blue-chip protocol founders, you bring the rolodex on day one.

• Executive presence. Credible with TradFi/Fintech C-suite; able to make DeFi concepts legible to institutional decision-makers without dumbing them down.

• Strategic and organized. You see the full DeFi chessboard, prioritize ruthlessly, and know when to move fast versus when to build consensus.

• Proven leadership and management experience. You have run a small, high-output team with clear direction and high trust.

• Efficient communicator, written and verbal. You distill complexity into clarity without losing nuance.

Nice to Haves

• Strong knowledge of trading/markets; able to think in expected value (EV) terms.

• Experience deploying or managing liquidity across multiple chains.

• Comfort reading Solidity and understanding smart contract risk at a conceptual level.

• Experience working within a foundation, DAO, or decentralized contributor structure.

Why Work with Us

• Challenging problems. You’ll tackle deeply complex and technically demanding problems, with autonomy and impact.

• Endless Opportunity for Impact. The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) standard is ubiquitous, but existing EVM-compatible chains are slow and bandwidth-constrained. Monad’s core innovations offer developers and founders the best of both worlds (portability and performance) and are a game-changer to power global on-chain finance.

• The right team. You’ll be part of a world class team, who are exceptional and highly-motivated.

• Culture. We’re a lean team working together to achieve very ambitious goals. We are united in our culture of collaboration, low ego, and high-quality output.

• Strong Ecosystem. The broader Monad ecosystem has attracted support from leading investors, builders and long-term contributors.