The posting
OP Labs builds Optimism, a blockchain network that powers the next generation of financial infrastructure. Hundreds of companies, from the world's largest enterprises like Sony, Coinbase, Kraken, Uniswap, OKX, and Bitpanda to the most ambitious early-stage builders, use the OP stack to launch their own blockchains and bring their users onchain. Today, over 65% of Layer 2 activity on Ethereum runs through the OP stack.
We are a small team building at the speed of the ecosystem we support. The NYC office is our center of gravity, and we have a strong preference for people who can join us there on a hybrid schedule. We've raised $178M from a16z, Paradigm, and others. We have our work cut out for us and are looking for exceptional people to join us.
Role and Responsibilities
We are looking for a Japan-based Sales Engineer to support Optimism’s enterprise and institutional adoption across the Japanese market. This role sits at the intersection of sales, product, and engineering, and is critical to helping large institutions evaluate, design, and deploy production-grade on-chain systems using the OP Stack.
You will partner closely with the Sales, Product and Engineering teams to leverage Optimism’s technology into institution-ready solutions; supporting technical diligence, performance testing, architecture design, and integration planning for Japan’s largest and most innovative enterprises. This role must be based in Japan.
What are the role responsibilities?
- Support deal execution & technical validation
- Act as the primary technical counterpart for enterprise and institutional partners during evaluations, pilots, and integrations into production systems
- Lead technical discovery sessions covering architecture, performance, security, compliance, and operational requirements
- Design and support test environments (e.g., devnets, performance benchmarks, cloud deployments, etc) to validate throughput, latency, and cost assumptions
- Respond to detailed technical diligence from banks, asset managers, system integrators, and regulators
- Bridge product, engineering, and customers
- Translate enterprise requirements into clear technical feedback for OP Labs product and engineering teams
- Help shape roadmap priorities related to institutional needs (e.g., performance, compliance tooling, privacy, sequencing models)
- Support integrations with wallets, custody providers, cloud infrastructure, and system integrators (e.g., Fireblocks, AWS, SIs)
- Enable partners for production readiness
- Guide partners through OP Stack architecture, deployment models, upgrade paths, and operational best practices
- Support documentation localization and technical enablement in Japanese
- Help customers compare and migrate from private / permissioned experimentation to public or hybrid production deployments
- Represent Optimism technically in Japan
- Participate in technical workshops, partner meetings, and industry events alongside sales and Business Development
- Serve as a trusted technical advisor to Japanese enterprises evaluating Layer 2 and blockchain infrastructure
- Collaborate with local ecosystem partners (SIs, exchanges, wallets) to accelerate adoption
What skills do you bring?
- Experience
- 5–10 years of experience as a Sales Engineer, Solutions Architect, or Technical Pre-Sales role
- Background in blockchain infrastructure, cloud platforms, distributed systems, or financial infrastructure
- Hands-on experience with Ethereum or EVM-based systems (Layer 1 or Layer 2 strongly preferred)
- Experience working with regulated institutions (banks, asset managers, exchanges, payments firms) is a strong plus
- Technical Skills
- Strong understanding of blockchain architecture: sequencing, finality, rollups, smart contracts, and network operations
- Familiarity with cloud infrastructure and production deployment environments
- Ability to reason about performance, scalability, security, and operational tradeoffs
- Comfortable explaining complex technical concepts to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders
- Communication & Mindset
- Fluent in Japanese; professional working proficiency in English
- Strong communicator who can bridge technical and business audiences
- Customer-oriented and execution-focused
- Comfortable operating in ambiguity and fast-moving environments
- Skills & Approach
- Sharp strategic thinker who can map fragmented fintech value chains and craft compelling BD theses
- Independent deal-closer who’s comfortable interfacing with C-level stakeholders and navigating multi-party partnerships
- High agency operator who can build 0→1 partnerships, GTM strategies, and partner programs with minimal oversight
- Strong communicator who can translate between business, technical, and ecosystem stakeholders across varying levels of crypto fluency
- Comfortable navigating ambiguity in a fast-moving, frontier market and iterating quickly based on learnings
- Culture & Mindset
- Deeply mission-aligned—motivated to rebuild the global financial stack on open, composable rails
- Low-ego and execution-oriented; you value results over recognition
- Thrive in collaborative, cross-functional teams but can also move quickly on your own
- Obsessed with leverage—always looking to create scalable impact via product, partnerships, or ecosystems
What will you like about us?
- We take care of our employees. Competitive compensation, fully paid medical, dental, and vision, and a 4% 401K match.
- We take pride in the accomplishments of our teammates and support each other in doing the best work of our careers.
- Our team is a diverse group of people from varied backgrounds. We cherish our eclecticism and consider it a great strength.
- We're remote-friendly with an NYC office where we like to collaborate in person.
- We think long-term. Our founders have been scaling Ethereum since 2015.
- Learn more about our interviewing here! https://oplabs.notion.site/Interviewing-at-OP-26cf153ee1628080ab4fd1ddca5b5998
WHAT WE OFFER
- Health, fully covered. OP Labs pays 100% of your health insurance premiums, with a range of medical, dental, and vision plans to choose from.
- 401(k) with a 4% company match.
- $2,000 annual wellness stipend, to spend on whatever keeps you healthy and energized.
- $1,000 WFH setup stipend and $1,000 learning budget
- Competitive compensation, including performance bonus and token grants — you share in the growth of what we're building together.
- Flexible time off. No fixed allotment. Take what you need.
- 14 paid holidays, plus two Collective Pause weeks each year — the first week of July and the week between Christmas and New Year, when the whole company steps back at once.
- Four-week sabbatical after three years, three of them paid, with your equity and tokens vesting throughout.
- New York hybrid, or location-flexible (team dependent). Commercial and growth teams work from our SoHo office three days a week; engineering and technical roles are location-flexible.
- We get together in person. Every team carries a travel budget so remote teammates can join us in New York, and we bring the whole company together at offsites twice a year.
We are aware of fraudulent individuals falsely claiming to represent OP Labs in recruitment activities. Please note:
- All official communication will come from an @oplabs.co http://oplabs.co email address, or from a verified LinkedIn profile.
- We will never ask for payment, banking information, or personal identification details at any stage of our hiring process.
- All current openings are listed exclusively on our official careers page https://www.optimism.io/careers and linked from our verified social profiles.
- If you’re ever unsure about a communication that claims to be from OP Labs, please contact us directly at [email protected] to verify authenticity.
Your safety and trust are very important to us. Thank you for helping us prevent fraud.
