Head of Exchange Platform & Core Infra

Kraken International; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Kraken is seeking a Head of Exchange Infrastructure to own the layer underpinning all Kraken products: the matching engine, core infrastructure, custody interfaces, and API engine. You will lead a senior team of product managers, driving a consolidated, interface-agnostic platform with a focus on latency, throughput, and uptime.

You will define the roadmap, set cross-functional priorities, and partner with engineering and risk teams to ensure smooth migrations and robust performance for crypto

Qualifications

• Senior product leader with experience in exchange, trading, or high-performance platforms.
• Experience managing and developing product managers, on a team senior enough to run without you in the room.
• Happy to be a player-coach. This team is independent, so you will own roadmaps and write specs yourself at times, not only review them.
• Proven ability to set product vision and translate it into a long-term roadmap.
• Strong understanding of matching engine and market data architecture, and the tradeoffs low latency forces.
• Experience building platforms for internal customers, with the judgment to tell a platform from a series of bespoke builds.
• Excellent communication skills — can influence technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• A passion for crypto markets, market structure, and building the next generation of infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Own the product vision and roadmap for the exchange layer: matching engine, core infrastructure, third-party custody, algo engine and API engine
• Lead and grow a team of four to five product managers, and set the bar for product craft across the layer
• Lead the consolidation of multiple matching engines into one, starting with US derivatives, then international derivatives, then spot
• Build interface-agnostic, so every product team and every interface can build on the same platform rather than their own
• Define success metrics (p99 latency, throughput, uptime, resiliency) and hold teams accountable to them
• Partner with engineering leaders across exchange and core infrastructure to sequence the migration without disrupting live markets
• Partner with Risk and Credit Infrastructure so a client can hold one account and trade every product against it
• Anticipate industry shifts and shape our platform to stay ahead
• Align cross-functional teams (product, engineering, risk, compliance) around the exchange strategy

Skills

Senior product leader

Exchange platforms

Team leadership

Roadmapping

Low latency architecture

Crypto markets

Cross-functional collaboration

Job description

Kraken is seeking a Head of Exchange Infrastructure to own the layer underpinning all Kraken products: the matching engine, core infrastructure, custody interfaces, and API engine. You will lead a senior team of product managers, driving a consolidated, interface-agnostic platform with a focus on latency, throughput, and uptime.

You will define the roadmap, set cross-functional priorities, and partner with engineering and risk teams to ensure smooth migrations and robust performance for crypto