Senior Node Operations Engineer - Payments & Blockchain

Summary

Join Kraken's Payments & Blockchain team as a Node Operations Engineer and contribute to the secure and efficient management of blockchain nodes. You will develop and maintain systems for node backup, monitoring, and remediation, ensuring optimal performance and resilience. This role requires expertise in Linux systems, cloud platforms, and software development best practices. You will build internal tooling, troubleshoot issues, and create comprehensive documentation. The position demands strong analytical skills, a passion for cryptocurrencies, and the ability to communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders. Kraken offers a fully remote work environment and a collaborative team culture.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience in Site Reliability Engineering, DevOps Engineering, Software Engineering, Platform Engineering, Systems Engineering, or similar roles
• Proficiency in at least one modern application development or utility language
• An analytical mindset with the ability to tackle complex problems
• Knowledge of software development best practices and workflows, with a focus on testing and delivery methodologies
• In-depth knowledge of GNU/Linux systems, their administration, and low-level systems debugging—especially in containerized or OS-level virtualized environments
• Experience with cloud platform services and tooling (GCP, AWS, Azure)
• Experience with metrics-based monitoring systems and crafting SLOs for services
• Understanding of the TCP/IP network stack, DNS, SSL/TLS, and how traffic on IP networks establishes end-to-end security and trust
• Understanding of security best practices and how to build security into systems from inception
• Online availability for remotely fixable, unforeseen issues & on-call rotation
• Ability to communicate technical requirements to non-technical stakeholders
• Strong passion for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

Responsibilities

• Develop systems for automatic backup, monitoring, and remediation of blockchain nodes
• Code Kubernetes Operators and leverage Helm charts to deploy blockchain nodes in the K8s platform developed by the P&B SRE team
• Implement and roll out SLO-based monitoring and alerting for blockchain nodes
• Develop internal tooling and processes to provide abstraction over blockchain nodes
• Troubleshoot, debug, and profile blockchains, identify performance issues, and inform mitigation decisions
• Write high-quality policies, procedures, and technical documentation on blockchain node operations
• Be on call for issues with blockchain nodes and work towards automatic remediation whenever possible

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience operating blockchain infrastructure—whether in the cloud, a data center, or a server in your basement. Including: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, And many more
• Experience operating container orchestration tooling, such as Kubernetes or HashiCorp Nomad, including implementing GitOps workflows
• Experience with hybrid environments (cloud and data center) is a plus
• Experience working on validator nodes previously
• Experience with one or more of the following languages: Go, Rust, Node.js, Python
• One or more of the following certifications: CKA, CKS, OSCP, CCNA or equivalent
• Passion for open-source software with previous contributions to the space