Solana Ecosystem Growth Lead

SOLANA FOUNDATION; United States; Remote; USD 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a rapidly growing team at Raiku, a cutting-edge Solana infrastructure startup, as a Senior Ecosystem Growth Associate. You'll drive strategic partnerships and community engagement to facilitate adoption and integration within vibrant ecosystems. Your work will bridge innovative technology with real-world applications, while you thrive in a dynamic remote-first environment that rewards excellence with competitive salaries and token allocations.

Benefits

Competitive salary and token allocation

Budget for travel and home office setup

Remote-first team with async workflows

Performance-based bonuses

Qualifications

• 3–5+ years in business development or growth roles in blockchain.
• Deep familiarity with Solana including validator economics.
• Strong network in the Solana ecosystem and adjacent L1s.

Responsibilities

• Identify and prioritize potential partners across DeFi and validator operators.
• Lead outreach and negotiation of partnership terms.
• Represent Raiku in the Solana community across events and strategic groups.

Skills

Communication

Relationship Building

Business Development

Network in Ecosystem

Job description

Location: Remote (Europe-friendly time zones preferred)
Type: Full-Time
Compensation: Competitive Salary + Token Allocation

About Raiku

Raiku is redefining Solana’s consensus ecosystem by building infrastructure that enables guaranteed transaction inclusion, pre-confirmations, and deterministic settlement. Our software bridges validators with purpose-built execution environments—creating a new design space for high-performance, low-latency onchain applications. Backed by top-tier investors and actively collaborating with leading validators and dApps, Raiku is positioned to become a foundational layer in the future of Solana infrastructure.

Role Overview

As Senior Ecosystem Growth Associate, you will be instrumental in driving Raiku's adoption across the Solana ecosystem and broader web3 space. You will lead strategic outreach to protocols, validators, infra teams, and institutional users—transforming Raiku’s technical innovations into concrete partnerships, integrations, and use cases. This is a hybrid role spanning ecosystem development, business strategy, and hands-on execution.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Partnerships

• Identify and prioritize potential partners across DeFi, MEV infra, validator operators, and developer platforms.

• Lead outreach, engagement, and relationship development with key stakeholders in the Solana and adjacent ecosystems.

• Structure and negotiate partnership terms aligned with Raiku’s goals and product roadmap.

• Maintain visibility into the broader market landscape and partner positioning.

Growth Strategy & Execution

• Develop and implement targeted growth campaigns (e.g. validator adoption drives, app integrations, slot marketplace activation).

• Collaborate with product and engineering teams to ensure market fit and partner enablement.

• Track adoption metrics and use feedback loops to iterate on go-to-market strategy.

Ecosystem Engagement

• Represent Raiku in the Solana community—across events, forums, and strategic working groups.

• Actively engage with ecosystem contributors, dApps, and L1 stakeholders to surface opportunities and challenges.

• Position Raiku as a mission-critical upgrade for the Solana validator and application stack.

Market Intelligence & Reporting

• Monitor trends in validator incentives, fee markets, MEV, and Solana protocol changes (e.g. SIMDs).

• Conduct competitor and use case mapping to identify whitespace.

• Own partnership CRM, pipeline reporting, and growth dashboards.

Internal Collaboration

• Interface closely with engineering and research teams to shape product integrations and technical narratives.

• Collaborate with marketing to co-develop ecosystem messaging, educational content, and growth campaigns.

• Share ecosystem learnings internally to influence product direction and research priorities.

What We're Looking For

• 3–5+ years in business development, ecosystem, or growth roles in blockchain or infrastructure startups.

• Deep familiarity with Solana: validator economics, SIMD proposals, MEV mechanics, and the core builder community.

• Strong network in the Solana ecosystem and adjacent L1s, especially among dApps, validator operators, and DeFi protocols.

• Exceptional communication and relationship-building skills; you can hold your own in both business and technical discussions.

• Demonstrated ability to turn vision into partnerships, and partnerships into measurable adoption.

• Ability to operate independently and thrive in a fast-paced, high-context remote team.

Nice to Have

• Experience working directly with validators, MEV protocols, or RPC infrastructure.

• Prior exposure to developer ecosystems or go-to-market roles for L1 or L2 infrastructure projects.

• Comfortable with lightweight technical topics—state machines, transaction ordering, compute budgets, etc.

What We Offer

• A chance to join a category-defining protocol team pushing the frontier of Solana infrastructure.

• Token upside and a key role in shaping Raiku’s ecosystem footprint.

• Remote-first team with async workflows, a high ownership culture, and deep technical curiosity.

• Competitive salary, token allocation, and performance-based bonuses.

• Budget for travel, ecosystem events, and home office setup.