Where you'll fit in:Work directly with clients. Seek to understand. Be an expert on our platform. Know where to configure vs build to close a gap. Own the build and delivery of the outcome. See it through from end to end.
We're building a small team in New York to close the gap between the needs of our clients and delivering their needs.
This is a hands-on engineering role, not a coordination role. You'll have the ownership and responsibilities of a software engineer, alongside ownership of a client relationship. You have the ability to work confidently with clients and guide them through unfamiliar territory. That means leading discovery sessions, asking open questions and seeking to understand. You will build a deep platform knowledge in order to make sound technical decisions, build and ship those solutions, triage and fix issues and following through to make sure it delivered the outcome the client needed. You own this from end to end.
Expect a high pace environment, evolving approaches and problems without solutions. We're looking for people who enjoy ambiguity and making progress in that environment.
What you'll own:- Build client relationships. You will understand how clients actually work, working directly with operational teams and stakeholders to uncover friction, question assumptions and distinguish symptoms from root causes.
- Lead the client conversation. Build trust, demonstrate ideas early and challenge requests constructively. Help clients adopt Kraken's capabilities and ways of working, recognising when changing a process is a better answer than building custom software.
- Turn unclear problems into buildable solutions. Investigate workflows, systems and data. Develop options, explain trade-offs and establish a practical path forward.
- Build and ship. Start with Kraken's existing capabilities and configuration, and design, implement, test and release production software where changes are needed. Build solutions that fit the platform rather than create unnecessary client-specific complexity.
- Work agent-first. Use agents as a core part of investigation, development and testing. Give them useful context, direct their work and critically assess the results. You remain accountable for what ships.
- Own the outcome beyond deployment. Make sure the solution works in practice, support adoption and verify that it addresses the original problem.
- Work across Kraken. Partner with client engineering, delivery and product teams to decide whether a problem is best addressed through existing capabilities, a targeted change or the broader product roadmap. Bring in specialist expertise and balance immediate client needs with the long-term direction of the platform.
- Extend the impact. Recognise when a solution can benefit other clients, and help turn successful approaches into reusable capabilities and ways of working.
What you'll bring to the party:- Strong software engineering experience. You've independently delivered and maintained production software, and can navigate unfamiliar codebases, review changes and make sound technical decisions.
- Demonstrated client-facing skills. You've worked directly with clients, led discovery or solution discussions, and explained technical choices to both engineering and non-technical audiences.
- Practical problem-solving ability. You can take a messy operational problem, investigate what matters and build an effective solution without waiting for a complete specification.
- An agent-first approach to building. You can use coding agents and AI-enabled tools effectively while applying your own engineering judgement to their outputs.
- Ownership and follow-through. You take responsibility for whether your work solves the problem, not just whether the code is merged.
- Comfort with ambiguity and pace. You make progress with incomplete information, test assumptions early and know when to move quickly or investigate further.
- A collaborative engineering mindset. You work constructively with existing teams and build solutions others can understand, operate and maintain.
- Patience and an ability to explain complex things in a simple way.
The focus of this teamIts focus is significant operational problems where investigation, inventive thinking and hands-on engineering can unlock meaningful improvements. You may work across different workstreams as priorities evolve. Owning the solution does not mean doing everything yourself, but it does mean staying accountable through to a working result.
Bonus points:We'd be particularly excited if you bring one or more of the following:
- Experience in energy, utilities, or billing and switching in regulated markets.
- Experience with incident response or on-call for production systems.
- A prior forward deployed engineer or customer-facing engineering role.
- A track record of building internal tools or integrations that teams adopted.
- Evidence of cutting handoffs or rework in a delivery process.
☆ Why you'll love it here: - Great medical, dental, and vision insurance options including FSAs.
- Paid time off - we know working hard means also being able to recharge as needed, we trust our employees to get the work done and take the time they need.
- 401(k) plan with employer match.
- Parental leave. Biological, adoptive and foster parents are all eligible.
- Pre-tax commuter benefits.
- Flexible working environment: you need to shift around your schedule? You do you, we genuinely believe in work/life balance.
- Equity Options: every Kraken employee owns part of the business. We're a team, working together towards huge goals. Every person is crucial to our success, you should be rewarded as such.
- Modern office or co-working spaces depending on location.
- The salary range for this role in NYC ranges on average from $140,000-$220,000 depending on relevant experience, role alignment, and technical/client management expertise demonstrated throughout the interview process. While the broad salary range is listed, not all candidates will be placed at the top of the range-this will be determined by the overall fit for the position. If you have questions about this, just ask! Our recruiters are happy to provide more context.
