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Kraken, one of the world's longest-standing crypto platforms with over 10 million users, is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead and grow a team of 8-10 engineers owning core trading backend services. The Exchange team is responsible for the matching engine, market data gateways, internal and external APIs, margin systems, and other critical trading services.
In this role, you will lead a globally distributed team working across multiple tech stacks (C++, Go, Rust, Python) and guide them through the evolution of trading infrastructure from legacy systems to modern replacements. You'll stay technically engaged—reviewing architecture, unblocking the team, and contributing to code when needed. Performance optimization and market data work are top priorities, alongside supporting the team's broader technical scope.
You'll champion the adoption of AI-assisted engineering practices, partner cross-functionally with product and peer engineering teams to drive roadmap execution, and represent the team technically to stakeholders, communicating tradeoffs and progress clearly.
You bring experience managing engineering teams with a preference for hands-on technical leadership rather than purely administrative management. You have prior hands-on experience in distributed systems, highly-concurrent systems, low-latency, or high-volume transaction environments on Linux. Proficiency in Rust and/or C++ is required, with comfort operating in a polyglot environment. Knowledge of order types, trading systems, and financial products is essential. Experience with Aeron or similar messaging systems, multicast-based market data distribution, and cryptocurrency/blockchain familiarity are strong pluses. You have a proactive mindset, can prioritize across a technically deep team, and thrive with aggressive deadlines. A BS in a technical or quantitative field is preferred.
