Senior Software Engineer - C++ - Trading Technologies

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.

Before you apply, we encourage you to explore our culture page to understand what drives us and how we work.

The team

Founded in 2011, Kraken is one of the world's longest-standing crypto platforms, trusted by over 10 million individuals and institutions across the globe. It offers spot trading, margin, futures, staking, and OTC services, with products built for both individual investors and institutional clients.

Join our Exchange team and start building the internet of money. The Exchange team is responsible for everything to do with the trading backend services such as the matching engine, market data gateways, internal and external APIs, margin systems and various other trading services. The team is located globally and responsibilities are split into sub-teams, working with various tech stacks. Our teams code in C++, Go, Rust, and Python, depending on the product they are contributing to within Kraken.

This role sits within the Trading Technologies sub-team, which owns the messaging and transport layer at the core of our trading infrastructure — built on Aeron for ultra-low-latency, reliable UDP messaging. You'll work directly on the systems that move market data, orders, and trade events across our exchange at microsecond scale.

The opportunity

• Develop and maintain core framework and key software components for the Kraken trading engine, with a fous on the Aeron-based messaging transport layer

• Design and implement low-latency, high-availability messaging solutions across unicast, multicast, and IPC transport paths

• Tune and profile the full system stack — CPU pinning, NUMA topology, kernel bypass, receive buffer sizing — to squeeze latency out of production infrastructure

• Build and extend Aeron Archive integrations for durable message replay and stream persistence

• Build and design solutions that mitigate risk, implement security, and protect both systems and data

• Write reusable, testable, and efficient code

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and contribute to product roadmap accomplishment

• Work collaboratively on a distributed team, leveraging soft skills to effectively communicate and engage with stakeholders

What You Bring

• 5+ years experience working with modern C++

• Prior experience in at least one of the following using Linux — distributed and/or highly-concurrent systems; low-latency and/or high-volume transaction environments

• Deep understanding of low-latency systems fundamentals: lock-free data structures, mechanical sympathy, cache-line discipline, busy-spin vs. park/wake tradeoffs

• Experience with Aeron or comparable messaging transports (e.g. Chronicle Queue, ZeroMQ, LMAX Disruptor) highly desirable

• Experience with UDP networking, multicast, and kernel-bypass techniques (e.g. DPDK, RDMA) a strong plus

• Familiarity with SBE (Simple Binary Encoding) or similar zero-copy serialisation formats a plus

• Experience profiling and optimising code (CPU, memory, network) — perf, flamegraphs, VTune, or equivalent

• High level of proficiency in Python, Rust, and SQL strongly preferred

• Demonstrated knowledge of order types, trading systems, and financial products is highly desirable

• Cryptocurrency/Blockchain familiarity highly preferable

• Proactive mindset with the ability to both prioritize tasks and adhere to aggressive deadlines

• BS in a technical or quantitative field

Unless a specific application deadline is stated in the job posting, applications are accepted on an ongoing basis.

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.

Our commitment

Payward is powered by people from around the world and we celebrate the diverse talents, backgrounds, contributions, and unique perspectives that everyone brings to the table. We hire based on merit, seeking out people with the right abilities, knowledge, and skills for the job. We encourage you to apply for roles where you don't fully meet the listed requirements, especially if you're passionate or knowledgeable about crypto.

We may ask candidates to complete job-related skills or work-style assessments as part of our hiring process. These assessments evaluate competencies relevant to the role and are applied consistently across candidates for similar positions. Results are considered alongside experience and interviews, and are not the sole basis for any employment decision.

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.

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