Senior Compliance Associate - Automation & Systems

As a Senior Compliance Associate at Kraken (Payward), you lead the optimization and automation of the Financial Intelligence Unit's transaction monitoring and AML operations. You join a critical team responsible for scaling compliance frameworks across new jurisdictions and products while maintaining strong regulatory oversight and reducing false positives in detection systems.

What you'll do

• Lead transaction monitoring optimization, including rule testing, threshold tuning, and the design and rollout of new monitoring scenarios to improve detection quality and reduce false positives
• Identify and drive automation and workflow improvements across FIU processes to increase operational efficiency and effectiveness
• Evaluate and implement emerging technologies, including LLM and AI-enabled tools, to enhance alert triage, investigations, SAR filing, and FIU operational capabilities
• Partner with Product, Engineering, and Operations to support vendor integrations, monitoring infrastructure improvements, and FIU tooling enhancements
• Collaborate with Compliance leadership, including RCOs and MLROs, to maintain well-governed transaction monitoring frameworks aligned with regulatory expectations
• Support FIU scalability by designing processes and monitoring strategies that enable expansion into new products, regions, and increased transaction volumes

What you bring

• 5+ years of experience in AML, financial crime compliance, or FIU operations, with deep knowledge of transaction monitoring frameworks, suspicious activity detection, and regulatory expectations under BSA/AML regimes
• 3+ years of experience designing, testing, and tuning transaction monitoring rules, including threshold optimization, scenario design, and alert reduction strategies
• 3+ years of experience working with transaction monitoring systems and compliance tooling, including case management platforms, monitoring infrastructure, and investigative workflows
• Experience working in a regulated financial institution, preferably one licensed to operate in the EU, UK, and/or United States
• Experience driving process optimization or automation initiatives within compliance or financial crime programs to improve operational efficiency and scalability
• Experience working cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Data, or Operations teams to implement monitoring controls, vendor integrations, or compliance technology solutions
• Strong analytical and data interpretation skills, with experience using metrics, dashboards, and data analysis to evaluate monitoring effectiveness and improve detection quality
• Experience operating in fast-growing fintech, payments, or crypto environments, with the ability to design scalable compliance controls that support new product launches and geographic expansion
• Experience working with AI, machine learning, or LLM-enabled compliance tools, including investigative automation or alert triage technologies
• Familiarity with blockchain analytics tools such as Chainalysis, TRM Labs, Elliptic, or similar crypto investigative platforms
• Experience supporting vendor selection, implementation, or integration of regtech solutions

Nice to have

• ACAMS, CAMS-Audit, CFCS, or similar financial crime certifications

About Kraken (Payward)

Payward, the parent company behind Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, Payward Services, and CF Benchmarks, has spent 15 years building a modern and globally accessible financial infrastructure platform. Founded in 2011, Kraken is one of the world's longest-standing crypto platforms, trusted by over 10 million individuals and institutions, offering spot trading, margin, futures, staking, and OTC services.