Company Description

Founded in July 2021, TBD is one of Block's four business units, alongside Square, Cash App, and Tidal. At TBD, we believe in a decentralized future that returns ownership and control over your finances, data, and identity. Guided by this vision, TBD is building an open source platform and developer infrastructure that enables everyone to access and participate in the global economy.

TBD is inviting the world to join us in building and adopting open and decentralized technologies that solve real problems for real people — from next generation infrastructure that lowers the cost of global payments and enables frictionless commerce, to decentralized identity technologies that enable anyone to access and participate in the global economy. Our mission advances economic empowerment through the power of decentralized solutions, built open source and collaboratively.

The offerings we build will provide developers, institutions, and individuals with the capabilities needed to build the next wave of innovative apps and services, and access this decentralized future. We’re leveraging bitcoin and other decentralized technologies to reinvent the global financial system in an open and permissionless way to further Block’s mission of economic empowerment, with a global focus

Job Description

As TBD’s Identity Partnerships Lead, you will develop and manage TBD's ecosystem of open source and strategic partners with a focus on technology partnerships in the identity space. You will work closely with our Open Source Engineering, Decentralized Identity, and Product Management teams with the goal of building commercial relationships that advance TBD’s mission: inviting the world to join us in building and adopting open and decentralized technologies that solve real problems for real people. 

The partners you develop relationships with will range from open source organizations and startups to global companies in the Identity and Access Management (IAM), identity and verification (IDV), or compliance / risk sector. What they will have in common is alignment with our vision: a decentralized future that returns ownership and control to individuals over their finances, data, and identity. 

A big part of our strategy is to unlock the potential of decentralized identity (DID) technologies by bringing real life utility to verifiable credentials (VC) and catalyzing an ecosystem of partners to build on the Web5 stack. This mission-critical position will play a pivotal role in driving a number of strategic partnerships in the identity and credentials space to success, while simultaneously discovering new growth opportunities for our team and ecosystem.

You will report to TBD’s Head of Technical Partnerships.

Qualifications

You Will:

• Take ownership of creating and maintaining a strong relationship with our partners in the identity space (identity and access management, identity verification, risk / compliance, credential issuers, wallets).
  
• Use your excellent communication skills to present strategy recommendations in a clear and persuasive manner to executive team members.
  
• Negotiate strategic partnerships and commercial legal agreements with counterparties.
  
• Partner internally with product, engineering and other stakeholders across TBD to drive roadmaps and strategic deliverables and enable partner-led go-to-market motions.
  
• Be the category expert and go-to person who connects the dots and enables effective cross-functional collaboration to achieve our partnership goals.
  
• Build strong relationships and credibility across all our teams including Open Source Engineering, Decentralized Identity, Developer Relations, Marketing, Legal and Product Teams.
  
• Surface technical and strategic requirements to business and engineering leadership such that TBD’s technical products and projects meet our partners’ real-world needs. Understands the balance to strike in incorporating partner feedback and protecting TBD’s scope.
  
• Collaborate with TBD’s Business and Legal leads in furtherance of partnerships to set industry standards around crypto, payments, decentralized identity. 

You Have:

• 10+ years of experience.
  
• Business experience in the areas of partnerships, business development or product management in relevant industries (e.g. IAM, fintech, payments, decentralized finance or other decentralized technologies).
  
• Experience in driving commercial initiatives across Developer Tools, Integrations, and Web APIs.
  
• Deep experience managing nuanced business development processes and negotiating contracts with strategic partners (memorandum of understanding, definitive agreements, etc.) - where the experience involved navigating partnership strategy, negotiating business contracts, and driving cross-functional execution.
  
• Background that involves both engineering / technical experience
  
• Familiarity of relevant open source and/or developer ecosystems with understanding of organizations like DIF - Decentralized Identity Foundation, W3C Verifiable Credentials Group, OpenID Foundation and prior experience developing relationships within these communities.
  
• Understanding of the identity landscape: open source consortiums, vendors, data and standards (DID, W3C VC, OpenID, National Institute of Standards and Technology - NIST guidelines).
  
• Interest in decentralized technologies and blockchain.
  
• Strategic thinker who has strong conceptual and analytical skills to produce insights and recommendations around partnership and ecosystem strategy.
  
• Strong cross-functional project management skills and track record of working with cross-functional partners at a senior (executive) level, both internally and externally.

Additional Information

Block takes a market-based approach to pay, and pay may vary depending on your location. U.S. locations are categorized into one of four zones based on a cost of labor index for that geographic area. The successful candidate’s starting pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. These ranges may be modified in the future.

Zone A: USD $222,800 - USD $272,300

Zone B: USD $222,800 - USD $272,300

Zone C: USD $222,800 - USD $272,300

Zone D: USD $222,800 - USD $272,300

To find a location’s zone designation, please refer to this resource. If a location of interest is not listed, please speak with a recruiter for additional information. 

Benefits include the following:

• Healthcare coverage
• Retirement Plans including company match 
• Employee Stock Purchase Program
• Wellness programs, including access to mental health, 1:1 financial planners, and a monthly wellness allowance 
• Paid parental and caregiving leave
• Paid time off
• Learning and Development resources
• Paid Life insurance, AD&D. and disability benefits 
• Perks such as WFH reimbursements and free access to caregiving, legal, and discounted resources 

This role is also eligible to participate in Block's equity plan subject to the terms of the applicable plans and policies, and may be eligible for a sign-on bonus. Sales roles may be eligible to participate in a commission plan subject to the terms of the applicable plans and policies. Pay and benefits are subject to change at any time, consistent with the terms of any applicable compensation or benefit plans.

We’re working to build a more inclusive economy where our customers have equal access to opportunity, and we strive to live by these same values in building our workplace. Block is a proud equal opportunity employer. We work hard to evaluate all employees and job applicants consistently, without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, pregnancy, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, citizenship, or any other legally protected class. 

We believe in being fair, and are committed to an inclusive interview experience, including providing reasonable accommodations to disabled applicants throughout the recruitment process. We encourage applicants to share any needed accommodations with their recruiter, who will treat these requests as confidentially as possible. Want to learn more about what we’re doing to build a workplace that is fair and square? Check out our I+D page.

Additionally, we consider qualified applicants with criminal histories for employment on our team, assessing candidates in a manner consistent with the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.

Block, Inc. (NYSE: SQ) is a global technology company with a focus on financial services. Made up of Square, Cash App, Spiral, TIDAL, and TBD, we build tools to help more people access the economy. Square helps sellers run and grow their businesses with its integrated ecosystem of commerce solutions, business software, and banking services. With Cash App, anyone can easily send, spend, or invest their money in stocks or Bitcoin. Spiral (formerly Square Crypto) builds and funds free, open-source Bitcoin projects. Artists use TIDAL to help them succeed as entrepreneurs and connect more deeply with fans. TBD is building an open developer platform to make it easier to access Bitcoin and other blockchain technologies without having to go through an institution.