In this role, you'll lead Stellar's Solutions Engineering function, responsible for enabling transformative enterprise partners to successfully design, build, and operate production-grade integrations on the Stellar network.
This role owns Stellar's Forward-deployed Solutions Engineering function end-to-end. You will be accountable for how SDF supports partners from early technical discovery and solution design through production launch and ongoing support, ensuring integrations are scalable, future-proof, and aligned with the long-term evolution of the Stellar ecosystem.
As a member of our team, you'll operate at the intersection of engineering, architecture, and strategic partner engagement. This is a senior leadership role that combines people management, architectural depth, and program ownership, and plays a critical role in enabling Stellar's adoption by transformative enterprises.
In this role, you will:- Own and continuously refine Stellar's Solutions Engineering program, including engagement models, partner tiering, and escalation paths.
- Build, manage, mentor, and grow a team of Solutions Architects and Solutions Engineers, composed of both in-house team members and certified external collaborators.
- Lead end-to-end technical partner engagements, from early discovery and solution design through production launch and ongoing support.
- Serve as a senior technical escalation point for high-tiered partners, engaging directly when integrations require deeper architectural guidance or cross-functional coordination.
- Provide hands-on architectural leadership, including:
- Guiding system and integration design for complex or non-standard use cases.
- Reviewing proposed architectures and technical trade-offs.
- Helping derisk integrations through design reviews, targeted prototyping, or technical deep dives.
- Set and uphold a high technical quality bar for enterprise integrations, ensuring solutions are secure, scalable, maintainable, and future-proof.
- Collaborate closely with the Product and Engineering teams to surface recurring partner needs and tooling gaps, and inform roadmap prioritization based on real-world enterprise usage.
- Design and scale repeatable engagement models, including partner tiering, SLAs, documentation standards, and feedback loops that allow the program to scale without sacrificing quality.
- Oversee hiring, onboarding, training, and certification program for solutions engineers, both internally and across the Stellar partner ecosystem.
- Represent SDF in strategic partner conversations, deep technical reviews, and selective onsite engagements with enterprise partners.
- Continuously improve the Solutions Engineering program based on learnings from live integrations, postmortems, and evolving partner needs.
You have:- Significant experience leading customer-facing engineering or solutions teams, ideally in blockchain, fintech, or financial infrastructure.
- A strong technical background that enables you to lead architectural discussions, evaluate system-level trade-offs, and guide complex integrations, even if you are not writing production code on a daily basis.
- Experience managing multi-disciplinary teams, such as Solutions Architects, Forward-Deployed Engineers, Partner Engineers, or similar roles.
- Comfort operating in ambiguous, fast-evolving environments, where you are expected to help define structure, process, and best practices.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate between partner needs, technical constraints, and internal engineering and product priorities.
- Experience working directly with enterprise or institutional partners, including senior technical stakeholders.
- Willingness to travel occasionally for partner engagements.
- A strong sense of ownership and accountability for program outcomes, not just individual engagements.
Bonus Points if:- You have experience with blockchain systems, distributed ledgers, or financial market infrastructure.
- You have worked in a forward-deployed or embedded engineering model.
- You have experience designing or running certification, training, or partner enablement programs.
- You have contributed to open-source or ecosystem-driven platforms.
We offer competitive pay with a base salary range for this position of $172,000 - $258,000, depending on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and location. In addition, we offer lumen-denominated grants along with the following perks and benefits:
USA Benefits/Perks:- Competitive health, dental & vision coverage with most plans covered at 100% for the employee + any dependents
- Flexible time off + 15 company holidays including a company-wide holiday break
- Generous paid parental leave for all parents, plus paid pregnancy disability leave for birthing parents.
- Gym reimbursement ($80 per month)
- Life & ADD (up to $50K)
- Short & Long term disability
- 401K with 4% match
- Health & Dependent Care FSA Accounts
- Commuter benefits with $250/month employer contribution
- Health Savings Account (HSA) with monthly employer contribution
- Family building benefits through Kindbody
- Wellbeing benefits (One Medical, Rightway, Headspace)
- L&D budget of $1,500/year
- Daily lunch and snacks in office
- Company retreats
