Head of Exchange Infrastructure

Payward — the parent company behind Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, Payward Services, and CF Benchmarks — has spent the last 15 years building a globally accessible financial infrastructure platform to advance an open, global financial system.

The Team

Founded in 2011, 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.

We are looking for a Head of Exchange Infrastructure to own the layer every Kraken product is built on: the matching engine, core infrastructure, third-party custody, algo engine, and API engine. This role consolidates vertically integrated products into a single exchange stack that serves every product and interface. You will lead a team of four to five product managers, partnered with an engineering manager.

The Opportunity

• Own the product vision and roadmap for the exchange layer: matching engine, core infrastructure, third-party custody, algo engine, and API engine.
• Lead and grow a team of four to five product managers, setting the bar for product craft across the layer.
• Lead the consolidation of multiple matching engines into one, starting with US derivatives, then international derivatives, then spot.
• Build interface-agnostic architecture so every product team and interface can build on the same platform.
• Define success metrics (p99 latency, throughput, uptime, resiliency) and hold teams accountable to them.
• Partner with engineering leaders across exchange and core infrastructure to sequence the migration without disrupting live markets.
• Partner with Risk and Credit Infrastructure so a client can hold one account and trade every product against it.
• Anticipate industry shifts and shape the platform to stay ahead.
• Align cross-functional teams (product, engineering, risk, compliance) around the exchange strategy.

What You Bring

• Senior product leader with experience in exchange, trading, or high-performance platforms.
• Experience managing and developing product managers on a senior, independent team.
• Comfortable acting as a player-coach who owns roadmaps and writes specs when needed.
• Proven ability to set product vision and translate it into a long-term roadmap.
• Strong understanding of matching engine and market data architecture, and low-latency tradeoffs.
• Experience building platforms for internal customers with solid judgment.
• Excellent communication skills to influence technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• A passion for crypto markets, market structure, and next-generation infrastructure.

Nice to Haves

• Engineering background prior to product management, with hands-on experience building or operating high-performance systems.
• Experience across both spot and derivatives venues, understanding market structure differences.
• Time spent at a crypto exchange operating at comparable scale, volume, and uptime expectations.
• Track record of building platform roadmaps that interlock effectively with adjacent product organizations.