Sr. Technical Program Manager, Data & Audit Readiness

As a Senior Technical Program Manager for Data & Audit Readiness at Kraken (part of Payward), you sit at the intersection of the Data team and internal audit, risk, security, finance, and compliance functions. You act as the program management and coordination layer during audits and between them, owning the inventories, playbooks, catalogs, and access processes that keep the Data team's systems and datasets audit ready. This is a hands-on individual contributor role reporting to the Director, Regulatory Analytics & Reporting.

What you'll do

• Act as the program management layer for the Data team during audits, interfacing with internal Audit coordination teams, Risk, Security, Finance, Compliance, and external auditors.
• Own audit readiness as a continuous, always-on practice by proactively maintaining inventories, playbooks, and catalogs between audits, not only once one is actively underway.
• Create and manage an inventory of audit tests, expected requests, and response playbooks for Data team-owned systems and processes.
• Maintain a catalog of data sources in scope for audit, including known issues, readiness status, and areas for improvement, supported by ongoing testing including mock testing and identification of areas requiring reengineering.
• Align closely with business stakeholders such as Finance, Security, and Compliance to provide guidance and coordination support during audit activities.
• Implement tagging and governance processes in collaboration with Data Governance to identify endorsed datasets and tables considered audit ready.
• Manage the auditor data access role to ensure access is fit for purpose.

What you bring

• 7+ years of experience in program or project management, audit coordination, or data governance, ideally within a regulated or heavily audited environment in financial services.
• Experience with SOC, SOX, IT general controls, or other regulatory audit frameworks.
• Experience coordinating audit engagements or acting as a liaison between technical teams and Internal Audit, Risk, Compliance, or external auditors.
• Strong organizational skills, with experience building and maintaining inventories, playbooks, or documentation for recurring cross-functional processes.
• Familiarity with data cataloging, tagging, or governance practices, and how they support audit readiness and control certification.
• Understanding of data access management principles and the ability to evaluate whether access is fit for purpose.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to produce documentation that satisfies both technical stakeholders and auditors.

Nice to have

• Familiarity with audit management platforms such as AuditBoard, Jira, or Workiva.
• Knowledge of automated control design and control automation.
• Prior experience building or scaling a SOC, SOX, or control system in a hyper-growth or first-year SOX company.
• PMP, CAPM, or similar program or project management certification.

About Kraken

Kraken is one of the world's longest-standing crypto platforms, trusted by over 10 million individuals and institutions globally. It offers spot trading, margin, futures, staking, and OTC services for both individual investors and institutional clients. Kraken is part of Payward, which operates a suite of financial infrastructure platforms including NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, Payward Services, and CF Benchmarks.