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

Payward Services is an enterprise infrastructure platform that enables companies to seamlessly integrate trading, payments, funding, and digital asset services through a single unified system. It provides coordinated liquidity, custody, compliance, risk management, and settlement capabilities, reducing operational complexity for fintechs, banks, brokerages, and payment providers.

You'll be joining the Solutions Engineering function as a core contributor on our pre-sales team. Your focus is squarely pre-sales — partnering with sales and our Partner Solutions Lead to run discovery, design winning solutions, and build PoCs that close deals. You'll operate within the frameworks and playbooks our Solutions Architect has established, and bring the technical depth to execute them deal by deal.

You'll partner directly with our Solutions Architect, sales team, and Implementation Manager. This is a high-impact execution role — you'll be running deals end-to-end and delivering the technical win alongside sales.

The Opportunity

• Run technical discovery with prospective customers alongside sales and our Partner Solutions Lead — map their architecture, constraints, and compliance needs to our product suite (Embed, Ramp, Earn, xStocks, CF Benchmarks)

• Surface recurring customer asks and product gaps from your deals and feed them to the Solutions Architect to inform the roadmap

• Design tailored solutions spanning our existing offerings, customizations to those offerings, bespoke integrations built on top of our platform, or hands-on work directly in the customer's codebase

• Scope and build proof-of-concepts that demonstrate technical feasibility and win the deal

• Own a clean, structured handoff to our Implementation team — delivering PoCs, solution design docs, and knowledge transfer sessions that ensure what was promised gets built

• Execute the pre-sales playbook — discovery frameworks, solution templates, PoC standards, and handoff runbooks — and contribute improvements back to the team as you learn what works

What You Bring

• 4+ years in a technical pre-sales role (solutions engineering or solutions architecture) at a B2B API or infrastructure company

• Proven track record executing the technical pre-sales motion — discovery, solution design, PoC delivery, and deal-winning

• Fluency with REST/WebSocket APIs, auth patterns (OAuth, JWT), webhook architecture, and integration debugging

• Experience designing and building complex integrations for technical buyers at fintechs, banks, or neobanks — including customizations and bespoke work

• Strong knowledge transfer skills — you know how to package a solution design so an implementation team can execute it faithfully

• Clear, structured communicator who can run a discovery call, a design review, and a handoff debrief back to back

• Experience writing RFPs and documenting solution approaches that clearly communicate how our product and our customizations will solve a customer's problem

Nice to Have

• Crypto domain knowledge — trading, custody, KYC, staking, fiat ramp mechanics

• Experience with embedded finance or crypto-as-a-service products

• Experience with Coast and building out proof of concept sales demos inside Coast

• Hands-on with AI development tools (Claude Code, Cursor) for rapid prototyping

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.

Stay connected

Follow us on Twitter

Learn on the Kraken Blog

Connect on LinkedIn

Candidate Privacy Notice