Head of Financial Systems Engineering

Building the Future of Open FinancePayward - the parent company behind Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, Payward Services and CF Benchmarks - has spent the last 15 years building one of the most modern and globally accessible financial infrastructure platforms in the industry, built to advance an open, global financial system.The teamFounded in 2011, Kraken is one of the world s longest-standing crypto platforms, trusted by over 10 million individuals and institutions across the globe. It offers spot trading, margin, futures, staking, and OTC services, with products built for both individual investors and institutional clients.Kraken is on a mission to build the most trusted bridge between crypto and traditional finance. The Financial Systems Engineering team connects activity across products, payments, banking, and digital assets to the data, ledgers, controls, and applications Finance relies on. Our engineers bring expertise in data engineering, complex transaction flows, financial systems, and reconciliation. We partner with Treasury, Accounting, Tax, FP&A, Product, Risk, Security, Compliance, and platform engineering to make financial data reliable, explainable, and auditable.The opportunityReport to the CFO and lead the engineering vision for Kraken s financial systems, translating Finance priorities into a clear technical strategy and delivery roadmapAssess the current landscape, including fragmented data, processes, and technical debt. Define a target architecture and phased transformation plan based on evidence, business needs, and sound engineering judgmentLead, coach, and grow a team of specialists across financial systems, data engineering, integrations, and ledger-related services. Establish clear ownership and develop technical leadersSet standards for the completeness, quality, lineage, and ownership of financial data, from source events through transaction and balance records, reconciliation, accounting, and reportingContribute to architecture decisions for ledgers, subledgers, financial data models, APIs, and integrations across fiat and crypto activity. Determine what should be standardized and where distinct product flows need governed treatmentPartner with Accounting and Treasury to improve account and legal entity attribution, financial controls, reconciliation, exception handling, and the traceability of records across internal and external systemsLead modernization and migration without disrupting close, reporting, fund movements, or other critical Finance operations. Define validation checkpoints and criteria for retiring legacy processes and systemsEstablish end-to-end testing, documentation, observability, release controls, and incident response practices that account for the financial impact of upstream changesPartner with Product, platform engineering, Risk, Security, Compliance, Tax, and Legal on system boundaries, access controls, resilience, regulatory needs, and auditabilityEvaluate build, buy, and integration options; review consequential designs; and communicate architectural decisions, sequencing, risks, and tradeoffs clearly to Finance and Engineering leadersWhat you will tackle firstIn your first year, you ll build the foundations for a more reliable, scalable Finance architecture:Move key reconciliations from a monthly to a daily cadence, with clear ownership and a process for resolving exceptionsReduce the time needed to find the root cause of reconciliation breaks from weeks to daysMap and validate the source tables and transformations that actually feed financial statements, establishing lineage and ownershipComplete the UAT data lake connections needed to test financial data flows end to end before changes reach productionWhat you bringSignificant software engineering and technical leadership experience, including leading experienced teams through complex financial systems or data architecture changeA strong track record of hiring, coaching, and developing specialists while creating clear ownership, high engineering standards, and effective cross-functional partnershipsDeep understanding of ledgers, subledgers, double-entry concepts, reconciliation, settlement, and the path from an operational event to an auditable financial recordExperience with crypto or digital asset infrastructure and the challenges of connecting on-chain activity, internal balances, custody or wallet flows, and traditional financial systemsStrong technical judgment in distributed systems, data engineering, APIs, event-driven processing, and integrations across complex platformsExperience defining a target architecture and delivering a transformation roadmap across fragmented or legacy systems while sustaining production reliabilityExperience designing for data completeness, accuracy, lineage, reconciliation, access control, and auditabilitySound judgment in production operations, including incident response, monitoring, debugging, change management, and reliability improvementsAbility to partner with senior Finance and Engineering leaders and translate financial, operational, and control needs into a practical engineering roadmapAbility to lead experts and make informed architecture decisions without needing to be the deepest specialist in every domain; clear communication of priorities and tradeoffs to executives and technical teamsExperience with Rust, TypeScript/Node.js, or Python; finance applications such as NetSuite, Kyriba, or BlackLine; and SOX or SOC control environments is valuableUnless a specific application deadline is stated in the job posting, applications are accepted on an ongoing basis.Please note, applicants are permitted to redact or remove information on their resume that identifies age, date of birth, or dates of attendance at or graduation from an educational institution.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.Our commitmentPayward is powered by people from around the world and we celebrate the diverse talents, backgrounds, contributions, and unique perspectives that everyone brings to the table. We hire based on merit, seeking out people with the right abilities, knowledge, and skills for the job. We encourage you to apply for roles where you don t fully meet the listed requirements, especially if you re passionate or knowledgeable about crypto.We may ask candidates to complete job-related skills or work-style assessments as part of our hiring process. These assessments evaluate competencies relevant to the role and are applied consistently across candidates for similar positions. Results are considered alongside experience and interviews, and are not the sole basis for any employment decision.As an equal opportunity employer, we don t tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind, whether based on race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, citizenship, religion, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic as outlined by federal, state, or local laws.Stay connectedFollow us on TwitterLearn on the Kraken BlogConnect on LinkedInCandidate Privacy Notice