Senior Software Engineer - AI Enablement Finance

As a Senior Software Engineer for AI Enablement Finance at Kraken, you will architect and build the AI-native finance operating system for one of the world's longest-standing crypto exchanges, trusted by over 10 million individuals and institutions. Kraken's Global Finance team manages financial infrastructure across accounting, FP&A, treasury, tax, and finance operations spanning 70+ countries and multiple regulated entities. You will deploy production automation now while redesigning the finance architecture for the long term, addressing the substantial manual effort tied to critical financial and regulatory obligations.

What you'll do

• Assess and map Finance operations across the organization, including close, reconciliations, treasury, reporting, controls validation, and audit preparation, identifying capability gaps and manual bottlenecks across systems such as NetSuite, BlackLine, Kyriba, Fireblocks, and Lukka.
• Benchmark current operations against best-in-class practices and emerging AI capabilities to build the Finance automation roadmap, prioritized by operational leverage and regulatory risk.
• Work directly with accounting, FP&A, treasury, and finance operations teams to translate process pain points into buildable automation requirements.
• Design the long-term architecture for an AI-native finance operating system, defining how agentic systems interact with financial infrastructure, data pipelines, and control and reporting frameworks.
• Evaluate Kraken's existing finance systems stack and identify opportunities to simplify it, reduce manual intervention, and define a scalable target architecture.
• Build an agentic finance layer that runs alongside the existing stack, automating workflows while defining the migration path toward a more scalable, AI-native architecture.
• Deploy production-grade agentic workflows that automate finance operations including reconciliations, close processes, audit and reporting preparation, treasury monitoring, financial analytics, and controls validation.
• Build using modern AI tooling including Claude and Anthropic APIs, Python-based orchestration, n8n or equivalent workflow engines, and MCP or similar agent coordination layers.
• Integrate internal and external systems by connecting APIs, data sources, and tools into unified automated workflows.
• Maintain human oversight and design for auditability and control integrity, not just efficiency.
• Establish guardrails for automation and agent behavior to operate safely in a SOX-regulated financial environment, defining which controls are maintained and which are redesigned.
• Build frameworks covering data classification, auditability, human-in-the-loop checkpoints, failure detection, rollback mechanisms, regulatory compliance, and audit-ready design documentation.
• Classify all automation builds by risk tier before work begins, ensuring no build goes to production without a named Process Owner, documented data flows, access controls, and audit logging confirmed.
• Serve as the Finance domain representative in Kraken's Automate Everything Center of Excellence, contributing to governance standards and cross-functional build alignment.
• Create reusable frameworks, workflow templates, and documentation so future Finance team members can safely build on the platform.
• Train finance professionals on AI-assisted tools and workflows deployed in production, driving adoption and operational independence.
• Build metrics, dashboards, and performance frameworks to measure efficiency gains, cost reduction, risk outcomes, and ROI from automation and AI initiatives.
• Provide leadership reporting on operational improvements, risk posture, and the finance platform roadmap.

What you bring

• Proven track record designing, deploying, and scaling agentic AI systems in production environments used by others, not just experimentation or internal demos.
• Deep understanding of LLM orchestration, multi-agent system design, and the failure modes of autonomous AI workflows in high-stakes operational environments.
• Strong systems architecture capability: able to move from discovery to design to build to deployment to optimization without relying on external consultants.
• Hands-on proficiency with modern AI automation tooling: Claude/Anthropic APIs, Python-based orchestration, n8n or equivalent workflow engines, MCP or similar agent coordination layers.
• Strong domain knowledge of finance operations including close processes, reconciliations, treasury, financial reporting, and controls in a regulated environment.
• Experience deploying automation in a SOX-regulated or equivalent compliance environment, with demonstrated understanding of which controls must be preserved and how to design automation that maintains audit integrity.
• Ability to translate finance and business requirements into technical roadmaps and scalable operational solutions.
• Strong communication skills to bridge finance, technical, and business teams while influencing senior stakeholders and driving cross-functional alignment.
• Comfort operating in ambiguous environments with a high level of ownership and bias toward execution.

Nice to have

• Experience with Finance systems stack or equivalent enterprise platforms: NetSuite, BlackLine, Kyriba, Fireblocks, or Lukka.
• Background as a Head of Product or Head of Engineering at an AI-native company, AI systems architect, or founder or early engineer at an agentic infrastructure company.
• Familiarity with crypto-native financial infrastructure including digital asset custody, on-chain reconciliation, and blockchain-based accounting workflows.
• Experience in high-velocity or resource-constrained environments such as a startup, PE-backed company, or an understaffed finance team where you built the system yourself.
• Familiarity with data privacy, information governance, or compliance systems in a financial services context.
• Experience managing vendor relationships and procurement for finance technology platforms.

About Kraken

Payward, the parent company of Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, Payward Services, and CF Benchmarks, has spent 15 years building one of the most modern and globally accessible financial infrastructure platforms. Founded in 2011, Kraken is one of the world's longest-standing crypto platforms, offering spot trading, margin, futures, staking, and OTC services for both individual investors and institutional clients across 70+ countries.