About Nethermind
Nethermind is a blockchain research and software engineering company building high-performance infrastructure, security tooling, and cryptographic systems across the Ethereum ecosystem and beyond. We work closely with protocol teams, L2s, and ZK projects to help design, review, and secure cutting-edge decentralized systems.
About the role:
We are looking for a senior business development and operations lead in Italy, ideally based in Lombardia, with direct experience in vending, payments, coffee vending, convenience retail, retail automation, or adjacent industrial technology.
You will help develop the company's Italian commercial presence by building relationships, identifying pilot opportunities, supporting partner conversations, and helping turn early interest into structured commercial progress.
This role requires someone who is commercial, operational, and technical enough to have credible conversations with traditional retail, industrial, and machine-based businesses.
Responsibilities:
- Own early business development for Italy, starting in Lombardia and nearby commercial regions.
- Build relationships with operators, commercial partners, distributors, payment companies, retail automation businesses, and strategic location owners.
- Identify pilot opportunities in vending, coffee vending, unattended retail, and related self-service environments.
- Support commercial conversations, meetings, demos, and structured follow-up.
- Work directly with the founder on Italian market development, customer feedback, and partner strategy.
- Help position the company credibly with industrial and retail stakeholders.
- Translate local market feedback into product, integration, and deployment requirements.
- Support pilot planning, field coordination, demo logistics, and early customer success.
- Help develop the first version of the Italian sales and operations playbook.
- Build the foundation for a future local team across business development, operations, field deployment, and customer success.
Requirements:
Direct experience in at least one of the following is required:
- Vending machines
- Coffee vending or office coffee service
- Unattended retail
- Payments, POS, or merchant services
- Convenience retail
- Retail automation
- Self-service kiosks
- Automated food, beverage, or snack retail
- Industrial electronics or machine distribution related to retail automation
- Strong network in Italy, ideally Lombardia, across relevant operators, payment providers, retailers, distributors, or technology partners.
- Italian fluency required.
- Professional English required.
- Ability to sell a new technology product to traditional industrial and retail stakeholders.
- Ability to understand conversations around hardware, software, payments, service, inventory, and operator economics.
- Willingness to travel across Lombardia, Northern Italy, and other relevant Italian markets.
- Comfortable working in an early-stage startup with high autonomy and limited structure.
- Strong follow-through and ability to turn relationships into concrete next steps.
Preferred experience:
- Experience working with Italian vending companies, coffee-machine companies, payment providers, or automated retail businesses.
- Experience selling or deploying payment systems, telemetry systems, POS, retail automation, IoT hardware, or related technology.
- Experience launching new products or partnerships with industrial, retail, or operator partners.
- Experience with channel sales, distributors, operators, or franchise-style networks.
- Experience building a country or regional sales function from scratch.
Success outcomes:
- You build a practical understanding of the Italian market and priority commercial opportunities.
- You identify and qualify strong target partners, customers, and pilot locations.
- You secure high-quality meetings with relevant decision-makers.
- You help move at least one serious opportunity toward a pilot, collaboration, or commercial next step.
- You provide clear local feedback that improves product positioning and deployment planning.
- Over time, you help establish Italy as an important market for the company.
Our Commitment to Diversity
At Nethermind, we celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all team members. We believe a variety of perspectives drives innovation and leads to better solutions for the blockchain community.
Ready to Join Us?
If you're passionate about blockchain and eager to make an impact, we’d love to hear from you. Click Apply for this job to start your journey with Nethermind.
