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.

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.

We design and deliver the next generation of crypto custody and settlement services, ensuring trust, transparency, and resilience at every layer of our platform.

Our engineers are a globally distributed, mission-driven group focused on creating new, scalable services that form the backbone of our custody infrastructure — from key management and wallet orchestration to transaction pipelines and compliance systems.

We combine deep backend expertise with a strong focus on security, reliability, and performance. The team thrives in a collaborative, transparent, and DevOps-oriented environment, where technical excellence and innovation come together to redefine how digital assets are protected and managed.

If you’re passionate about secure system design, distributed architectures, and building solutions that truly matter in the crypto ecosystem, this is where you’ll make your impact.

The opportunity

• Collaborate with product managers, architects, and DevOps engineers to design and deliver secure, scalable, and high-performance custody solutions.
• Build and maintain new backend microservices in TypeScript, Node.js, powering custody, staking, and wallet services.
• Integrate with blockchain networks and external systems to support asset movements, transactions, and key management workflows.
• Contribute to frontend applications built with React and Next.js, ensuring clear operational visibility and seamless user experience.
• Develop event-driven systems using Kafka for real-time data processing and inter-service communication.
• Write reusable, testable, and efficient code, maintaining high standards for performance, observability, and fault tolerance.
• Collaborate across teams to design and optimize data models, APIs, and distributed architectures.
• Participate in technical reviews, mentor other engineers, and take ownership of services throughout their full lifecycle — from RFCs and design to deployment and maintenance.

What you bring

• 3+ years of professional experience in fullstack or backend engineering within high-scale, high-availability systems.
• Expert-level proficiency in Node.js and TypeScript, with hands-on experience using NestJS or similar frameworks.
• Deep understanding of microservices, event-driven architectures, and CQRS/DDD design patterns.
• Proven ability to design and deliver RESTful APIs and asynchronous event-based communication systems.
• Strong experience with SQL databases and schema design for performance and reliability.
• Solid understanding of React and modern frontend best practices.
• Deep knowledge of state management (React Query, Context API, custom hooks).
• Experience with Next.js, Tailwind CSS, and component-driven architecture.
• Hands-on experience with Docker, CI/CD, and observability tools such as Prometheus and Splunk.
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills — capable of working effectively in distributed, cross-functional teams.

Nice to haves

• Understanding of crypto protocols, staking mechanisms, and the broader blockchain technology ecosystem.
• Experience with gRPC, Protocol Buffers.
• Hands-on experience with Rust.
• Background in financial systems, digital assets, and experience in custodial or other regulated environments

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.

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