Senior AI Engineer - Growth

Kraken; South Africa; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Kraken is building an AI-native growth engine where agents make distribution decisions and content is generated at scale. As AI Engineer, Growth, you will be the second builder on this engine, collaborating with our lead architect to ship agent workflows and integrations that power paid growth, lifecycle, and CRO.

You move fast, work from specs, and care deeply about the quality of what you ship, delivering systems that actually run growth rather than just support it.

Qualifications

• 3+ years building automation workflows, integrations, or agentic systems using AI orchestration platforms or workflow tools.
• Strong understanding of API integrations: REST, webhooks, authentication patterns, and error handling at scale.
• Experience with LLM APIs, prompt engineering, structured outputs, tool use, and agent chaining.
• Ability to work from a spec without hand-holding; translate workflow designs into production.
• Growth or marketing context understanding; focus on growth outcomes.
• Ability to balance speed and quality in delivery.

Responsibilities

• Build agent orchestration workflows across growth use cases.
• Create integrations between AI reasoning layer, growth platforms, data infrastructure, experimentation systems, and analytics tools.
• Develop shared agent infrastructure components.
• Establish monitoring and audit logging for governance and improvement.
• Design and implement creative and content generation pipelines.
• Push workflows from spec to production.
• Ensure reliable integrations and maintain as tools evolve.
• Document workflows clearly for domain specialists.

Skills

AI orchestration

Workflow automation

API integrations

LLM APIs

Prompt engineering

Spec-driven development

Growth context

Quality-focused delivery

Tools

REST APIs

Webhooks

Authentication patterns

Error handling

Job description

Building the Future of Open Finance

Payward - 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.

Payward - 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.

Before you apply, we encourage you to explore our culture page to understand what drives us and how we work.

The team

Founded 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.

You’ll work directly with the AI Growth Infrastructure Lead, the Growth Workflow Specialists across channels, and the domain experts who spec the workflows you build. You’ll operate within the Growth Foundations Group — the centralized team that builds the engine every product team in the business runs on.

The Role

We’re building an AI-native growth engine — one where agents make distribution decisions, creative is generated and iterated at scale, and the system compounds intelligence across every product simultaneously. This is not automation bolted onto existing workflows. It is a new model entirely.

As AI Engineer, Growth, you will be the second builder on this engine. Working alongside our lead architect, you execute — building, shipping, and iterating the agent orchestrations, automated workflows, and system integrations that power every growth work-stream: paid growth, lifecycle, organic search, CRO, incentives, referrals, and beyond.

This role is for someone who moves fast, builds from specs without needing hand-holding, and cares deeply about the quality of what they ship. If you’ve spent your career wanting to build systems that actually run growth rather than just support it — this is that role.

What You’ll Build

• Agent orchestration workflows across growth use cases — automating the decisions and executions that today require human intervention across paid media, lifecycle messaging, organic content, conversion optimization, incentives, and other growth levers
• Integrations between our AI reasoning layer, growth execution platforms, data infrastructure, experimentation systems, and analytics tools
• Shared agent infrastructure components — reusable workflow patterns, prompt libraries, and integration clients that every growth workstream draws from
• Monitoring and audit logging — ensuring every agent action is traceable, versioned, and queryable for governance and continuous improvement
• Creative and content generation pipelines — automating the brief-to-variant-to-distribution loop across growth channels

What You’ll Own

• Build velocity across new growth workstreams — you are the person who gets workflows from spec to production
• Integration reliability — connections between systems work, handle errors gracefully, and are maintained as tools evolve
• Workflow documentation — every workflow you build is documented clearly enough that a domain specialist can understand, tune, and improve it without your involvement

What You Bring

• 3+ years building automation workflows, integrations, or agentic systems — using AI orchestration platforms, workflow automation tools, or equivalent technologies
• Strong understanding of API integrations — REST, webhooks, authentication patterns, and error handling at scale
• Experience working with LLM APIs — prompt engineering, structured outputs, tool use, and agent chaining
• Comfort working from a spec — you can take a workflow design and build it accurately without the architect in the room
• Growth or marketing context — you understand what you’re building toward, not just how to build it
• Speed and quality in balance — you ship fast and you care what you ship

Nice to haves

• Experience with paid media platforms, marketing automation, CRM, or lifecycle messaging systems
• Familiarity with data warehouse query patterns and event tracking infrastructure
• Background in a high-growth fintech, consumer tech, or multi-product technology environment
• Experience designing multi-agent architectures or complex agent-to-agent workflows

Our commitment

Payward 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.

Unless 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.

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