Senior Dealmaker - AI

Mysten Labs believes that decentralized and open protocols are the bedrock of the internet of value. This is why at Mysten Labs, we are creating foundational infrastructure to accelerate the adoption of decentralized protocols based on blockchain technologies.

The Role

We’re hiring a Senior Dealmaker to shape and lead AI partnerships for Walrus, Mysten Labs’ decentralized storage network, across the ecosystem.

As AI agents take on more complex work, they need infrastructure that helps them retain context, handle sensitive information, and maintain a trustworthy record of their actions. With Walrus as the foundation for decentralized storage and persistent memory, we’re building toward that future with a broader stack that includes confidential compute—supporting product reliability and compliance as agents operate in the real world.

Your job is to determine where Walrus and these complementary capabilities can create the greatest value, build relationships with the right partners, and structure agreements that lead to meaningful integrations and adoption. You’ll focus on foundation model companies, AI platforms, data platforms, and adjacent infrastructure providers.

Working closely with the Head of Partnerships and Walrus product and engineering leadership, you’ll help set partnership priorities and independently lead complex opportunities from initial thesis through implementation. This is a senior individual contributor role with substantial ownership, requiring strategic judgment, commercial creativity, and hands-on execution.

What You’ll Do

• Shape our AI partnership strategy. Develop a clear perspective on where Walrus can become essential infrastructure for AI applications and agents. Identify the partners, use cases, and market developments that should guide our investment of time and resources.

• Originate consequential partnerships. Build relationships with founders, executives, and technical decision-makers at foundation model companies, AI platforms, agent frameworks, data platforms, and adjacent infrastructure providers. Create opportunities before there is an established partnership motion.

• Define the opportunity alongside the partner. Understand how partners build, what their customers need, and where our technology can solve a meaningful problem. Work with product and engineering leadership to shape joint offerings, integration proposals, and commercial models.

• Structure and close complex deals. Lead negotiations involving technical integrations, joint product development, distribution, and commercial agreements. Navigate competing priorities and create structures that give both organizations a compelling reason to commit.

• Deliver integrations and adoption. Own relationships beyond signing. Align teams on scope, resources, and milestones; resolve obstacles; and keep partnerships moving toward implementation, launch, and sustained usage.

• Influence across the organization. Bring partner and market insights into product, engineering, marketing, and leadership discussions. Make clear recommendations, surface tradeoffs, and build alignment around opportunities that require investment across teams.

• Establish a repeatable approach. Turn early wins into sharper partner selection criteria, stronger deal structures, and more effective execution. Raise the quality of partnership work through sound judgment, shared learning, and mentorship.

What You’ll Have

• Substantial experience in strategic partnerships or business development, typically 10–15+ years, with demonstrated ownership of strategically significant relationships in AI, data infrastructure, or developer platforms.

• Deep engagement in the AI ecosystem, including strong relationships with founders, executives, and product and technical leaders at relevant companies.

• A proven record of independently originating, structuring, negotiating, and closing complex partnerships that produced meaningful integrations, joint offerings, distribution, or adoption.

• The judgment to identify which opportunities deserve investment, articulate a compelling partnership thesis, and walk away when the strategic or commercial fit is weak.

• Strong product instincts and technical fluency. You can engage engineers on architectures and agentic workflows, uncover a partner’s underlying needs, and connect technical capabilities to business value.

• Credibility in the startup community and firsthand experience building with limited structure, resources, or established processes. You can point to opportunities you personally created and brought to market.

• The ability to think at enterprise scale while executing with startup urgency. You’re comfortable navigating executive stakeholders and handling the details needed to get an integration live.

• A track record of influencing senior stakeholders and aligning product, engineering, legal, and commercial teams without relying on formal authority.

• Creative commercial judgment, a bias for action, and accountability for outcomes through implementation and adoption.

• Curiosity about decentralized infrastructure and the ability to become fluent quickly. Prior Web3 experience is welcome; substantial AI ecosystem experience is essential.

• High ethical standards, direct communication, and comfort adapting as the product and market evolve.

• Ability to travel approximately 20% of the time, including internationally.
  

Location: San Francisco Bay Area preferred. We may consider exceptional candidates elsewhere who are deeply embedded in the AI ecosystem.

Employment is contingent upon the successful completion of a background check, which may include verification of employment history, education credentials, criminal history, and other relevant information.

Regarding the recent rash of technology job scams: Be aware that emails from genuine Mysten Labs group recruiters will always come from the @mystenlabs.com domain or related subdomains (e.g., mystenlabs.com/careers). Remember: you can always verify positions on our job boards at www.mystenlabs.com/careers.

To support an efficient and fair hiring process, we may use technology-assisted tools, including artificial intelligence (AI), to help identify and evaluate candidates. All hiring decisions are ultimately made by human reviewers.

Our team is remote first and we are hiring across the world. Here at Mysten Labs, you’ll be joining a world-class team with tremendous growth potential as we bring the next billion users to web3. We raised a $300M Series B round from top Silicon Valley led venture funds like Jump Crypto, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Binance Labs, Redpoint, Lightspeed, Coinbase Ventures, Electric Capital, Standard Crypto, NFX, Slow Ventures, Scribble Ventures, Samsung Next, Lux Capital, among other investment firms and strategic partners. Come join us and build the future of web3!