Senior Software Engineer – Agent Systems

Kraken; South Africa; Remote; ZAR 900,000 - 1,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Kraken is building the Agent Systems team to deploy AI-powered agents that automate internal workflows and orchestrate actions across internal tools. The work blends AI/ML with backend engineering to move fast while keeping production reliability high.

Engineers will prototype rapidly, ship production-grade solutions, and collaborate with product, infrastructure, and internal operations to scale automation and speed within the organization.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience building and shipping production software systems.
• Strong backend fundamentals: APIs, distributed systems, data modeling, reliability.
• Experience fullstack with backend and occasional frontend surfaces.
• Hands-on AI/ML systems experience, LLMs, or inference pipelines in production.
• Able to prototype rapidly with production-ready architecture.
• Strong systems thinking — orchestration, failure modes, observability.
• Comfort operating in ambiguous, 0→1 environments with high ownership.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship AI-powered agent systems that automate internal workflows.
• Design inference pipelines that reason over user interactions across internal systems.
• Prototype quickly to validate agent behaviors, then productionize valuable ones.
• Architect backend services that integrate with multiple internal APIs and data sources.
• Define patterns for safe, observable, and controllable agent execution.
• Collaborate cross-functionally to identify high-leverage automation opportunities.
• Improve system speed, reliability, and signal quality as usage scales.
• Contribute to foundational design decisions for a 0→1 agent platform.

Skills

Backend engineering

APIs & distributed systems

AI/ML systems

Prototyping to production

Observability

0→1 ownership

Tools

APIs

LLMs

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.

Proof of work

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.

The Agent Systems team is a 0->1 engineering group building internal AI-powered agents that interact directly with company systems. The mandate is to dramatically increase internal speed of execution through automation, intelligent inference, and workflow orchestration.

This team operates at the intersection of AI, backend systems, and applied product engineering. The work is pragmatic and fast-moving - prototypes are expected, but the bar for production reliability remains high. Engineers on this team move fluidly between experimentation and shipping, building systems that reason over user interactions and take meaningful action across internal tools.

You\'ll work closely with cross-functional partners across product, infrastructure, and internal operations to deploy agent-driven capabilities that compound leverage across the organization.

The opportunity

• Build and ship AI-powered agent systems that automate internal workflows and decision paths


• Design and implement inference pipelines that reason over user interactions across internal systems


• Prototype quickly to validate agent behaviors, then productionize what proves valuable


• Architect backend services that integrate with multiple internal APIs and data sources


• Define patterns for safe, observable, and controllable agent execution


• Collaborate cross-functionally to identify high-leverage automation opportunities


• Improve system speed, reliability, and signal quality as usage scales


• Contribute to foundational design decisions for a 0->1 agent platform

Skills You Should HODL

• 5+ years of experience building and shipping production software systems


• Strong backend engineering fundamentals (APIs, distributed systems, data modeling, reliability)


• Experience building fullstack systems, with comfort working across backend and occasional frontend surfaces


• Hands-on experience working with AI/ML systems, LLMs, or inference pipelines in production


• Ability to prototype rapidly while maintaining a clear path to production-grade architecture


• Strong systems thinking — able to reason about orchestration, failure modes, and observability


• Comfort operating in ambiguous, 0->1 environments with high ownership

Nice to haves

• Experience building or operating agent-based systems or autonomous workflows


• Familiarity with prompt engineering, evaluation frameworks, or model performance tuning


• Experience integrating with internal enterprise systems (CRM, support tools, analytics platforms, etc.)


• Background in building developer platforms or internal tooling


• Experience designing guardrails, sandboxing, or safety layers for AI systems

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.

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.

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