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Overview
Aptos is seeking a Payments Product Lead to lead the engineering team in building payment infrastructure for a high-performance Layer 1 blockchain. The role involves API development, partner integration, and team leadership. Aptos is a people-first blockchain on a mission to help billions of people achieve universal and fair access to decentralized assets in a safe and scalable way. Founded by some of the original creators and maintainers that researched, designed, and built the Diem blockchain to serve this purpose, we have dedicated several years toward this mission. We believe the open-source Diem technology we have developed is an important foundation of a safe and scalable web3 world where everyone has more equitable opportunities to grow and access financial assets with lower fees and fewer intermediaries. Aptos (Ohlone for "The People") encompasses our mission and ethos for why we build.
What you'll own
- •The Aptos Payment API. Spec, ship, and run the single API businesses integrate against — wrapping partner infrastructure today, with an orchestration engine routing across a licensed partner network as the business earns it. You write the spec bottoms-up from partner and client requirements.
- •Partner-facing engineering. You are the technical face of the unit: requirements intake, integration leadership, and technical diligence with banks, EMIs, PSPs, stablecoin issuers, and e-wallet platforms. You can run those calls alone and write the requirements doc after.
- •The trust infrastructure. Revenue attribution and reconciliation (the system that proves which volume is ours), a single-window KYC/KYB integration, a testnet sandbox that lets any prospect try the stack before compliance onboarding, and a native-asset-only settlement policy — no bridges.
- •Integration with the trading stack. Our trading team builds the RFQ liquidity and tokenized-FX systems; you own the payments side of that seam — routing corridor FX through their venue, defining the API contract between the two systems, and making the handoff invisible to clients.
- •The team and the calls. Hire and lead the first two engineers; grow the team only as revenue triggers fire. Make the build-vs-buy decisions (orchestration components, KYC tooling) with written memos at each gate.
Why this role is unusual
- •Distribution is solved before you start. An exclusive settlement partnership routes committed volume to the network — you build against real flow, not hoped-for flow.
- •The business is chartered. Written gates, a stop condition, and growth triggers tied to revenue — you'll always know exactly where the business stands and what your work must prove next.
- •The scope compounds. What starts as one API becomes an orchestration network and a tokenized-currency framework, integrated with a trading venue's liquidity — the technical agenda grows with every gate the business clears.
- •You define the org. Every engineering hire after you is your call, made against revenue evidence.
Our Benefits
- •100% insurance premium coverage for medical, dental, and vision for you and your dependents (US Employees)
- •Equipment of your choice
- •Flexible vacation time, 11 holidays, and floating company days off
- •Competitive Salary
- •Protocol Token Grants
- •401k matching (US Employees)
- •Fun and inclusive in-person and digital events.
What we're looking for
- •8+ years building payment infrastructure at production scale — PSP or orchestrator-class systems: cross-border rails, on/off-ramps, virtual accounts, reconciliation.
- •Hands-on chain-native settlement experience: stablecoin rails, ramp integrations, wallet infrastructure. Move or Rust a plus; strong engineering judgment on any stack a must.
- •Front-facing gravitas: banks, issuers, and regulated partners treat you as a peer. You've led external technical relationships, not just internal roadmaps.
- •A product engineer's instincts: you build bottoms-up from what clients and partners actually need, and you treat existing internal products as assets to resell — not constraints to build around.
- •Player-coach by default: you ship code, then hire people better than you at parts of it.