Principal Partner Manager, Arc Ecosystem

Circle (NYSE: CRCL) is one of the world’s leading internet financial platform companies, building the foundation of a more open, global economy through digital assets, payment applications, and programmable blockchain infrastructure. Circle’s platform includes the world’s largest regulated stablecoin network anchored by USDC, Circle Payments Network for global money movement, and Arc, an enterprise-grade blockchain designed to become the Economic OS for the internet. Enterprises, financial institutions, and developers use Circle to power trusted, internet-scale financial innovation. Learn more at circle.com.

What you’ll be part of:

Circle is committed to visibility and stability in everything we do. As we grow as an organization, we're expanding into some of the world's strongest jurisdictions. Speed and efficiency are motivators for our success and our employees live by our company values: High Integrity, Future Forward, Multistakeholder, Mindful, and Driven by Excellence. We have built a flexible work environment where new ideas are encouraged and everyone is a stakeholder.

What you’ll be responsible for: 

We’re hiring a Partner Manager, Arc Ecosystem to own the day-to-day relationship management and success of Arc’s DeFi partners.

The primary focus of this role is ensuring that Arc’s ecosystem partners — including lending protocols, DEXs, vault providers, tokenized real-world asset platforms, wallets, and other financial primitives — successfully build, launch, and grow within the Arc ecosystem.  Additionally, this role will help support enterprise and payments partners exploring onchain use cases such as payments, treasury management, and cross-border settlement built on blockchain infrastructure.

You will work closely with the Business Development team that sources and closes partnerships, and then take ownership of the post-deal partner lifecycle: onboarding, launch coordination, ecosystem alignment, and long-term growth.

Success in this role is measured by partner health, ecosystem insight, and the ability to drive meaningful adoption of Arc infrastructure across the DeFi ecosystem. This is a highly cross-functional role operating at the intersection of DeFi ecosystem development, partner success, and product feedback loops.

What you'll work on:

• Manage a portfolio of key Arc DeFi partners across areas such as: borrow / lend protocols, trading and swap infrastructure, tokenized real-world asset platforms, vault and yield products, wallets and DeFi applications, payments companies, fintech platforms, and enterprises exploring blockchain-based flows

• Build trusted relationships with partner teams across product, engineering, ecosystem, and leadership stakeholders.

• Partner closely with the Business Development team to ensure smooth transitions from deal signing, to integration, to launch.

• Coordinate launch execution across internal teams including Product, Engineering, Legal / Compliance, Risk, Marketing, and Operations

• Ensure partners have what they need to successfully build and launch on Arc.

• Contribute to ecosystem reporting, partner materials, and strategic updates that help position Arc as a leading foundation for programmable finance.

• Represent Circle and Arc at ecosystem events, conferences, and partner meetings when relevant.

What you’ll bring to Circle: 

Core Requirements:

• 10+ years of experience in partnerships, ecosystem development, business development, product partnerships, or strategic account management roles.

• Experience working within crypto, fintech, or financial infrastructure environments, such as DeFi protocols, wallets or crypto applications, fintech or neobank products, crypto exchanges, onchain financial infrastructure, blockchain-based payments companies.

• Demonstrated experience working with external partners to launch and grow financial or crypto products, including coordinating technical integrations and managing ongoing partner performance.

• Strong ability to build credibility with product, engineering, and commercial stakeholders at partner organizations.

• Comfort working cross-functionally with teams such as Product, Engineering, Legal / Compliance, Risk, Marketing and Operations.

• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

• Strong interest in DeFi, stablecoins, and programmable financial infrastructure.

• Familiarity with generative AI models (ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.) and prompt development.

Preferred Requirements:

• Experience working with DeFi protocols or onchain financial products, including lending markets, liquidity pools, borrow / lend vaults, tokenized real-world assets, trading or swap infrastructure.

• Experience partnering with wallets, fintech platforms, or crypto exchanges.

• Experience supporting technical integrations such as APIs, SDKs, or smart contract integrations.

• Prior experience in early-stage or zero-to-one environments.

• Deep curiosity about the future of onchain finance and financial infrastructure.

• Experience/familiarity with Slack, Apple MacOS and GSuite.

Additional Information:

• This position is eligible for day-one PERM sponsorship for qualified candidates.

Circle is on a mission to create an inclusive financial future, with transparency at our core. We consider a wide variety of elements when crafting our compensation ranges and total compensation packages.

Starting pay is determined by various factors, including but not limited to: relevant experience, skill set, qualifications, and other business and organizational needs. Please note that compensation ranges may differ for candidates in other locations.

Base Pay Range: $172,500 - $222,500

We are an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, or any other protected status required by the laws in the locations where we hire. Additionally, Circle participates in the E-Verify Program in certain locations, as required by law.

Should you require accommodations or assistance in our interview process because of a disability, please reach out to accommodations@circle.com for support. We respect your privacy and will connect with you separately from our interview process to accommodate your needs.

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