Software Engineer - Rust - Consumer

Kraken; South Africa; On-site; ZAR 1,990,000 - 3,151,000; Full time

Job summary

Kraken is hiring an experienced Software Engineer for the Consumer team. You will design and implement customer-facing Rust backend services powering trading, payments, and crypto experiences, owning features end-to-end and collaborating with product teams to deliver impactful experiences.

Ideal candidates have an AI-first development approach, strong eye for detail, and a track record of delivering world-class user experiences at scale.

Qualifications

• Proficient in Rust for backend services handling trading, payments, and crypto experiences.
• Strong understanding of network services, asynchronous code, and distributed systems design.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement customer-facing Rust backend services powering trading, payments, and crypto experiences.
• Own features end-to-end, considering customer experience, frontend impact, and product problems.
• Collaborate with product teams to understand requirements and integrate with Kraken's trading infrastructure.
• Propose improvements and autonomous solutions that ship valuable experiences.
• Utilize AI to accelerate development, focusing on architecture and product validation.

Skills

Rust

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

Async programming

AI-assisted development

Tools

Kafka

RPC protocols

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.

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.

We are currently seeking an experienced Software Engineer to join our growing Consumer team. The Consumer team at Kraken focuses on building applications that expose Kraken’s product offering to the mass market. Trying to onboard the next 100 million people to the benefits of crypto.

This role primarily involves developing features and maintaining our “Consumer” applications, which consists of a suite of applications aimed at offering the simplest way for our customers to interact with Kraken. We expect anyone applying for this role to have an extreme eye for detail, a passion for building genuinely world class user experiences, a “ship fast but don’t ship shit” attitude and be highly self driven.

The opportunity

• Design and implement customer-facing Rust backend services powering trading, payments, and crypto experiences
• Own features end-to-end rather than stopping at the API/backend boundary, understanding customer experience, frontend impact, and the product problem behind what you're building.
• Collaborate with product teams to understand customer requirements and integrate with Kraken's trading infrastructure while maintaining a product-led engineering focus
• Propose improvements and drive solutions autonomously. You're not simply implementing specifications, but translating evolving product requirements into resilient solutions that ship valuable experiences.
• Use AI extensively to amplify scope and speed, moving from manually writing code toward orchestrating AI and validating implementation, increasingly focused on problem definition, architecture, and product validation.

What You Bring

• Rust/backend engineer with proficiency in network services, asynchronous code, and distributed systems design (RPC protocols, Kafka, event-driven architectures)
• Product engineering mindset. You've shipped features from problem → implementation → launch → user impact, with deep understanding of customer experience and product metrics
• AI-first development approach where AI is already meaningfully incorporated into your workflow; you actively use AI for coding, understanding unfamiliar codebases, crossing technical boundaries, and validating implementations
• Ownership mindset with collaborative spirit. You personally drive features end-to-end, work across backend/frontend boundaries and operate outside technical silos
• Security-first approach to system design with ability to autonomously debug across the stack (OS, network, application)
• Openness to how the engineering profession is evolving because of AI, prioritizing shipping valuable products over manual code writing

Nice to haves

• Full-stack experience including React/TypeScript or other frontend frameworks - valuable for demonstrating cross-boundary collaboration mindset
• Cryptocurrency or blockchain domain knowledge
• Experience building products at consumer-focused technology companies

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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