Technical Project Manager - Core Infrastructure

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 Core Infrastructure Team at Kraken is dedicated to creating and managing a robust, secure, and automated infrastructure that is both scalable and cost-effective. This infrastructure will ensure low-latency, high-throughput, and resilience, enabling Kraken to efficiently deliver software and platform solutions to our stakeholders and clients.

As a Technical Project Manager, you will support cross-functional engineering teams in the successful planning, execution, and delivery of mission-critical projects. You’ll work across stakeholders in Engineering, Product, IT, Compliance and Security, ensuring alignment, visibility, and scalability of our critical projects. This role demands a balance of strategic systems thinking and meticulous attention to detail. You'll work on initiatives spanning infrastructure, orchestration, compliance, security, databases and internal tooling, using a mix of Agile and waterfall approaches where appropriate.

The team embraces hyper-transparency, fostering an environment of open dialogue, candid discussions and constructive feedback, staying adaptable in the ever-evolving crypto industry. This role is fully remote. We consider candidates in EU and EST US/LATAM timezones.

The opportunity

• Project Management & Execution: Drive end-to-end execution of complex, cross-functional technical projects within the engineering, security, compliance, facility and datacenters operations. Build and manage project plans, roadmaps, dashboards, and release timelines. Coordinate cross-functional teams around strategic priorities and outcomes. Identify dependencies, manage risks, and unblock teams through creative problem-solving. Facilitate meetings, retrospectives, planning sessions and lead planning for big initiatives, coordination with stakeholders. Track KPIs and project health via metrics and dashboards, iterating on reporting for clarity and impact. Manage intake workflows (feature requests, support channels, KTLO) and ensure requests are dealt with efficiently and in a timely manner.
• Cross-Team Collaboration & Communication: Partner with Engineering Managers, Engineering Leads, and Product Managers to align on requirements, timelines, and project planning. Communicate effectively across technical and non-technical audiences—including executives—with clear summaries and actionable insights. Work closely with external vendors when required, ensuring compliance and technical standards.
• Process Improvement & Tooling: Improve internal workflows through enhanced Atlassian workflows, AI, automation, self-service and consistent reporting mechanisms. Drive continuous improvement by identifying inefficiencies and recommending scalable process changes. Cultivate a high-performing team environment by sharing project management best practices across teams.

What You Bring:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or similar.
• 1+ year experience working as an Engineering Manager, Technical Project Manager, or similar Software Engineer role.
• Strong technical acumen, ideally with experience in engineering, infrastructure, security, developer experience, networking in fintech environments.
• A data-driven mindset, measuring the effectiveness of our processes and systems to make informed decisions.
• Demonstrated ability to leverage AI technologies to rapidly generate scripts and automate workflows, enabling the efficient development and scaling of internal tools.
• Experienced with Atlassian Suite of products (Jira, Confluence, Jira Product Discovery), Slack workflows, and other PM tools.
• Proficient in Agile and waterfall methodologies with the judgment to apply context-dependent approaches.
• Excellent communicator, with the ability to synthesize complex ideas into clear project plans and status updates.
• Self-starter with a track record of independently driving initiatives to completion.
• Curious, adaptable, and eager to experiment and iterate.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and rapidly shifting priorities in a dynamic industry.
• Strong sense of discretion and data sensitivity, particularly within security and compliance domains.

Nice to haves:

• Prior experience in cryptocurrency or fintech.

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. 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.