Data Platform Engineering Manager

Unchain Data; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-friendly culture

Job summary

Kraken, a fully remote crypto company, seeks a leader for its Data Platform team to own streaming and real-time data infrastructure across trading, risk, and analytics. You will architect systems using Kafka, Spark, and RisingWave, and drive AI-powered automation and self-healing workflows at scale.

Responsibilities include mentoring senior engineers, aligning roadmaps with product and compliance, and evolving the data-lake/warehouse for batch and streaming workloads.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in data engineering or distributed systems
• 3+ years managing engineering teams
• Experience building data lakes in AWS (Spark, Athena, Iceberg, Parquet, Presto) including data modeling
• Strong expertise in real-time data systems (Kafka, Spark Streaming, Debezium, CDC pipelines)
• Ability to align platform investments with product, finance, compliance, analytics, and other teams
• Excellent communication to senior technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Experience designing or adopting AI/ML-powered automation in data workflows
• Proficiency in Python, Scala, or Java in production data platforms
• Cloud-native data infrastructure experience on AWS (Glue, Athena, S3, EMR, Lambda)
• Track record of recruiting and developing remote engineering teams
• Ability to translate long-term vision into executable quarterly roadmaps
• Servant-leadership style and passion for high team performance
• AI-ready mindset to boost team efficiency and output

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a team of senior data platform engineers
• Own the architecture and roadmap for high-volume data systems
• Design scalable data architecture serving trading, risk, analytics, and product teams
• Drive AI automation and intelligent workflows in data pipelines
• Partner with ML/AI, analytics and product teams to deliver platform capabilities
• Evolve data-lake and warehouse architecture for batch and streaming workloads
• Set technical direction balancing reliability, velocity, and cost at scale
• Hire, mentor, and retain top-tier remote engineers

Skills

Data engineering

Engineering leadership

Distributed systems

Python

Scala

Java

AWS

Data lakes

Real-time data

Tools

Kafka

Apache Spark

Iceberg

RisingWave

Apache Flink

Debezium

CDC pipelines

Parquet

Athena

Glue

S3

Job description

About Us

Kraken is a mission-focused company rooted in crypto values. Our Krakenites are a world-class team with crypto conviction, united by the desire to discover and unlock the potential of crypto and blockchain technology. We are accelerating the global adoption of crypto so that everyone can achieve financial freedom and inclusion. For over a decade, Kraken's focus on our mission and crypto ethos has attracted many of the most talented crypto experts in the world.

As a fully remote company, we have Krakenites in 70+ countries who speak over 50 languages. We are industry pioneers who develop premium crypto products for experienced traders, institutions, and newcomers to the space. Kraken is committed to industry-leading security, crypto education, and world-class client support through our products including Kraken Pro, Desktop, Wallet, and Kraken Futures.

About the Role

Kraken's Data Platform team builds the real-time infrastructure that powers decision-making across one of the world's largest digital asset exchanges. We operate at the intersection of streaming data, large-scale platform engineering, and AI-driven automation — processing billions of events daily across trading, compliance, and product systems.

This role leads the team responsible for Kraken's streaming and data platform layer — designing systems that move, transform, and serve data in real time. You'll own the architecture around stream processing (RisingWave, Flink), drive adoption of AI-powered automation and workflows across the data stack, and build the platform primitives that the rest of engineering depends on.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a team of senior data platform engineers building Kraken's real-time streaming infrastructure
• Own the architecture and roadmap for high-volume low-frequency data systems, with focus on data stack like Spark, Kafka, Iceberg, RisingWave, Apache Flink
• Design and operate scalable data architecture that serve trading, risk, compliance, analytics and many product teams
• Drive adoption of AI automation and intelligent workflows — automating data quality checks, pipeline orchestration, anomaly detection, and self-healing infrastructure
• Partner with ML/AI, analytics, and product engineering teams to deliver platform capabilities that accelerate their work
• Evolve Kraken's data-lake and warehouse architecture to support both batch and streaming workloads seamlessly
• Set technical direction for the team — balancing reliability, velocity, and cost efficiency at scale
• Hire, mentor, and retain top-tier platform engineers; build a culture of ownership and technical excellence

Requirements

• 8+ years in data engineering, platform engineering, or distributed systems — with at least 3 years managing engineering teams
• Experience and knowledge of building data-lakes in AWS (i.e. Spark, Athena, Iceberg, Parquet, Presto), including data modeling, data quality best practices, and self-service tooling
• Strong expertise in building and operating real-time data at scale including Kafka, Spark Streaming, Debezium, and CDC pipelines
• Proven ability to manage competing priorities across multiple stakeholder groups — aligning platform investments with the needs of product, finance, compliance, analytics, and other teams
• Strong communicator — able to explain risks, trade-offs, and roadmap decisions to both senior technical audiences and non-specialist stakeholders
• Experience designing or adopting AI/ML-powered automation in data workflows — pipeline orchestration, intelligent monitoring, automated remediation, or LLM-integrated tooling
• Proficiency in Python, Scala, or Java in a production data platform context
• Solid understanding of cloud-native data infrastructure (AWS preferred — Glue, Athena, S3, EMR, Lambda, or equivalents)
• Track record of managing, recruiting, and developing high-performing remote engineering teams
• Ability to translate long-term platform vision into executable quarterly roadmaps
• Servant-leadership style — you coach, unblock, and grow your engineers
• AI-ready to 10X the team efficiency and overall output

Nice to Have

• Experience with RisingWave and/or Clickhouse specifically — either in production or in serious evaluation
• Familiarity with LLM-based agents or AI workflow frameworks (e.g. LangChain, LangGraph, custom orchestration)
• Background in cryptocurrency, trading systems, or high-throughput financial data
• Experience building self-service data platform tooling for internal engineering consumers
• Contributions to open-source streaming or data infrastructure projects