Solutions Architect, Ecosystems Team - TBD

Founded in July 2021, TBD is one of Block's four business units, alongside Square, Cash App, and Tidal. At TBD, we believe in a decentralized future that returns ownership and control over your finances, data, and identity. Guided by this vision, TBD is building an open source platform and developer infrastructure that enables everyone to access and participate in the global economy.

TBD is inviting the world to join us in building and adopting open and decentralized technologies that solve real problems for real people — from next generation infrastructure that lowers the cost of global payments and enables frictionless commerce, to decentralized identity technologies that enable anyone to access and participate in the global economy. Our mission advances economic empowerment through the power of decentralized solutions, built open source and collaboratively.

The offerings we build will provide developers, institutions, and individuals with the capabilities needed to build the next wave of innovative apps and services, and access this decentralized future. We’re leveraging bitcoin and other decentralized technologies to reinvent the global financial system in an open and permissionless way to further Block’s mission of economic empowerment, with a global focus.

We are seeking an experienced Solutions Architect to join our team. You will be responsible for bridging the gap between our engineering team and our first customers. You will help understand customer needs, translate technical requirements, and ensure that our solutions exceed customer expectations. You will drive implementation projects for our open source solutions and work with our TBD ecosystem to understand participants’ architectures. We expect you to come in and learn quickly and be willing to operate as an individual contributor, but have the experience and capabilities to eventually start to build and lead a team.

You will report to the Head of Ecosystems at TBD.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary technical point of contact for our first customers, providing expert guidance and support throughout the initial engagement and implementation process

• Collaborate with the engineering team to understand product capabilities and limitations, and communicate these effectively to customers

• Work closely with customers to understand their business needs and technical requirements, and translate these into actionable engineering tasks

• Lead the development of custom solutions and integrations to meet customer needs, working hands-on with the engineering team to ensure successful delivery

• Provide technical training and support to customers, ensuring they are able to effectively use and benefit from our solutions

• Gather customer feedback and work with the engineering team to continuously improve our products and services

• Understand technical architectures commonly used in payment companies and be able to design scalable and secure solutions

• Lead SDK implementations and provide guidance on best practices for using Rust, Swift, Kotlin, and Go in payment applications

• Manage the end-to-end project lifecycle of implementation projects, from planning and execution to delivery and post-launch support

• Make use of emerging tech such as generative AI to speed up implementations and proof of concepts with customer systems and SDKs
   

• 10+ years of experience in a technical customer-facing role, such as solution engineering, technical sales, or consulting

• Willingness to come in as an individual contributor, but with the chops to build and lead a team

• Technical background, with experience in software development, systems integration, and cloud technologies

• Experience establishing communication and engagement with prospects, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences

• Experience digging into prospects' pain points and validating the issues they're facing with customers and collaborate with cross-functional teams

• Experience with open source software and SDKs is a plus

• Understanding of technical architectures in payment companies, including knowledge of security protocols, data encryption, and compliance standards

• Familiar with 2 or more of: Java, Javascript, Swift, Kotlin, Golang. Willing to learn and adapt to programming languages to match SDKs up with users.

• Familiarity with payment processing, digital wallets, and financial technology

• Experience in pre-sales engineering for enterprise software 

• Interest and curiosity in emerging tech around decentralized systems, stablecoin, Bitcoin and generative AI is a strong plus

If you are a solution-oriented engineer with a passion for customer success, a deep understanding of payment architectures, and a track record of delivering high-quality customer implementations, we encourage you to apply for this exciting opportunity.

Block takes a market-based approach to pay, and pay may vary depending on your location. U.S locations are categorized into one of four zones based on a cost of labor index for that geographic area. The successful candidate’s starting pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. These ranges may be modified in the future.

Zone A: USD $180,000 - USD $270,000
Zone B: USD $180,000 - USD $270,000
Zone C: USD $180,000 - USD $270,000
Zone D: USD $180,000 - USD $270,000

To find a location’s zone designation, please refer to this resource. If a location of interest is not listed, please speak with a recruiter for additional information. 

Full-time employee benefits include the following:

• Healthcare coverage (Medical, Vision and Dental insurance)
• Health Savings Account and Flexible Spending Account
• Retirement Plans including company match 
• Employee Stock Purchase Program
• Wellness programs, including access to mental health, 1:1 financial planners, and a monthly wellness allowance 
• Paid parental and caregiving leave
• Paid time off (including 12 paid holidays)
• Paid sick leave (1 hour per 26 hours worked (max 80 hours per calendar year to the extent legally permissible) for non-exempt employees and covered by our Flexible Time Off policy for exempt employees) 
• Learning and Development resources
• Paid Life insurance, AD&D, and disability benefits 

These benefits are further detailed in Block's policies. This role is also eligible to participate in Block's equity plan subject to the terms of the applicable plans and policies, and may be eligible for a sign-on bonus. Sales roles may be eligible to participate in a commission plan subject to the terms of the applicable plans and policies. Pay and benefits are subject to change at any time, consistent with the terms of any applicable compensation or benefit plans.

We’re working to build a more inclusive economy where our customers have equal access to opportunity, and we strive to live by these same values in building our workplace. Block is a proud equal opportunity employer. We work hard to evaluate all employees and job applicants consistently, without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, pregnancy, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, citizenship, or any other legally protected class. 

We believe in being fair, and are committed to an inclusive interview experience, including providing reasonable accommodations to disabled applicants throughout the recruitment process. We encourage applicants to share any needed accommodations with their recruiter, who will treat these requests as confidentially as possible. Want to learn more about what we’re doing to build a workplace that is fair and square? Check out our I+D page.

Additionally, we consider qualified applicants with criminal histories for employment on our team, assessing candidates in a manner consistent with the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.

We’ve noticed a rise in recruiting impersonations across the industry, where individuals are sending fake job offer emails. Contact from any of our recruiters or employees will always come from an email address ending with @block.xyz, @squareup.com, @tidal.com, or @afterpay.com, @clearpay.co.uk.

Block, Inc. (NYSE: SQ) is a global technology company with a focus on financial services. Made up of Square, Cash App, Spiral, TIDAL, and TBD, we build tools to help more people access the economy. Square helps sellers run and grow their businesses with its integrated ecosystem of commerce solutions, business software, and banking services. With Cash App, anyone can easily send, spend, or invest their money in stocks or Bitcoin. Spiral (formerly Square Crypto) builds and funds free, open-source Bitcoin projects. Artists use TIDAL to help them succeed as entrepreneurs and connect more deeply with fans. TBD is building an open developer platform to make it easier to access Bitcoin and other blockchain technologies without having to go through an institution.

While there is no specific deadline to apply for this role, on average, U.S. open roles are posted for 70 days before being filled by a successful candidate.