Senior Software Engineer – Agent Systems

About the Company

Payward, the parent organization behind Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, Payward Services, and CF Benchmarks, has developed one of the most advanced and accessible financial infrastructure platforms over the last 15 years. Kraken, established in 2011, is among the world's longest-running cryptocurrency platforms, trusted by over 10 million users globally. It provides a range of financial services including spot trading, margin, futures, staking, and OTC services tailored for both individual and institutional investors.

About the Team

The Agent Systems team is a pioneering 0→1 engineering group dedicated to creating AI-driven agents that interact with internal company systems. Their mission is to significantly enhance internal operational speed by leveraging automation, intelligent inference, and orchestrated workflows. This team navigates the crossroads of AI, backend infrastructure, and applied product development, balancing rapid prototyping with the utmost production reliability. Engineering members seamlessly transition between experimental development and stable deployment, building systems capable of reasoning over user interactions and executing meaningful actions within internal tools.

Responsibilities

• Develop and deploy AI-enhanced agent systems that automate internal workflows and decision-making pathways.
• Architect inference pipelines to interpret user interactions across diverse internal platforms.
• Efficiently prototype agent behaviors to validate concepts, transitioning successful prototypes into production-ready solutions.
• Build robust backend services that interface effectively with multiple internal APIs and data reservoirs.
• Establish sustainable patterns ensuring agent execution that is safe, observable, and controllable.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to uncover automation opportunities that deliver significant organizational advantages.
• Enhance system performance focusing on speed, reliability, and quality of signal as usage expands.
• Contribute foundational design insights essential to the creation of a novel agent platform from concept to implementation.

Requirements

• Minimum 5 years of hands-on experience delivering production-grade software systems.
• Strong expertise in backend engineering principles including API design, distributed systems, data modeling, and ensuring reliability.
• Experience with fullstack development, capable of handling backend and occasional frontend components.
• Practical experience working directly with AI/ML systems, especially large language models or inference pipelines in a production context.
• Ability to prototype swiftly while maintaining a clear upgrade path to production-level architecture.
• Strong systems thinking aptitude, with understanding of orchestration, handling failure modes, and observability.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguous environments with a 0→1 startup mindset and high accountability.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in building or managing agent-based systems or autonomous workflow solutions.
• Knowledge of prompt engineering, evaluation methodologies, or optimizing model performance.
• Familiarity with integrating internal enterprise systems such as CRM, support, or analytics tools.
• Background in constructing developer platforms or internal tooling.
• Experience designing safety mechanisms, sandbox environments, or guardrails for AI systems.

Additional Information

Applications are accepted continuously unless a deadline is mentioned. Candidates may redact sensitive personal details such as age and educational dates in their resumes. The company adheres to fair hiring practices compliant with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and is committed to diversity and equal employment opportunity without discrimination based on protected characteristics.

Hiring processes may include job-related skills or work-style assessments conducted uniformly for all candidates, with results considered alongside experience and interviews. Payward values diverse backgrounds and encourages applications even from those who may not fully meet all requirements but demonstrate passion or knowledge in the crypto domain.