Software Development Engineer in Test II; SDET II - Pro

Building the Future of Open Finance

Payward – the parent company behind Kraken, Ninja Trader, Breakout, xStocks, Payward Services and CF Benchmarks – has spent the last fifteen 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 Pro team is responsible for everything to do with the trading backend services such as the matching engine, market data gateways, internal and external APIs, 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 Rust and work agile around the globe. Recently, the team played a critical role in scaling Kraken’s trading infrastructure.

As an SDET II within Kraken Pro, you will operate as an experienced individual contributor focused on quality engineering, automation, and developer productivity.

You will own significant areas of Kraken’s testing infrastructure, automation frameworks, and CI/CD tooling while partnering closely with engineers to improve reliability, testability, and release confidence across the Pro organization.

Depending on the team or product area you join, you may work on matching‑engine services, market‑data infrastructure, external APIs, futures and derivatives systems, and other areas of the Pro trading stack. This is a backend‑focused role requiring strong engineering depth, a high degree of autonomy, and the ability to drive quality improvements across complex distributed systems.

• Design, build, and own automated testing frameworks covering backend APIs, integrations, and trading workflows.
• Drive improvements to CI/CD pipelines, automation tooling, and engineering productivity.
• Review technical designs and merge requests, identifying quality, reliability, and testability risks early.
• Investigate and resolve complex failures across distributed systems and trading infrastructure.
• Define automation approaches and testing strategies for new products and services.
• Mentor engineers and contribute to raising quality engineering standards across the team.
• Experience using AI‑assisted development tools to improve productivity and quality.
• Partner with engineering leaders to continuously improve quality, reliability, and release processes.

• Strong Python/Rust/C++ skills with experience building production‑quality automation frameworks, tooling, or internal engineering systems.
• Deep backend and API testing experience across REST, Web Socket, and protocols such as gRPC or FIX, including distributed systems.
• Experience designing and maintaining automation frameworks, CI/CD pipelines, testing infrastructure, and containerised environments.
• Experience with in trading systems or other real‑time, high‑availability environments, with strong understanding of reliability, latency, and system behaviour.
• Strong understanding of trading concepts including order lifecycle, execution flows, margin, balances, and exchange mechanics.
• Demonstrated ability to investigate complex system failures and collaborate with engineers to drive resolution.
• Experience using AI‑assisted development tools such as Cursor, Codex, Claude Code, or MCP integrations to improve engineering productivity.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to influence engineering decisions and mentor other engineers.

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.