Principal, Business Operations – AI & Automation

Kraken

1d•Remote

About The Position

Kraken is a mission-focused company in the crypto and blockchain space, dedicated to accelerating the global adoption of crypto for financial freedom and inclusion. As a fully remote company, Kraken has a global team of "Krakenites" across 70+ countries. Payward Services (PWS), Kraken’s B2B arm, provides digital asset trading, payments, custody, staking, and funding rails through a single integration, and is scaling rapidly. The Business Operations team within PWS is central to driving execution, filling gaps, and building scalable systems, with a strong emphasis on AI. The team is building an AI-native operations function where automation is the core operating model, utilizing Claude-powered workflows, agentic pipelines, and custom integrations. The Principal, Business Operations – AI & Automation will co-own the automation stack, partner directly with leadership, and act as a force multiplier across the business. This role involves building intelligent systems to enable a 50-person team to operate like 500, owning the automation roadmap from opportunity identification through design, build, and scale. The ideal candidate is a strategist, builder, and operator with a deep understanding of how AI creates business leverage.

Requirements

5+ years in Business Operations, Consulting, Product Strategy, or similar roles in high-growth tech, fintech, or crypto
AI-native mindset — you already use AI tools daily and instinctively think about how to automate before doing something manually
Hands-on builder — you work with Claude, APIs, n8n, scripting, and automation platforms to ship real solutions, not just recommend them
Rapid learner — you've switched domains, picked up unfamiliar tools, and delivered in weeks, not months. Steep learning curves don't slow you down — they're where you're most comfortable
Data-driven by default — you reach for metrics before opinions and can pull, clean, and analyze data yourself
Strong structured problem-solving — able to go deep into workflows, systems, and data to find the real bottleneck
High ownership — you find the problem, design the solution, and ship it without waiting for permission
Comfortable in ambiguity with a strong bias toward action and experimentation
Ability to influence senior stakeholders and drive alignment across functions
Experience building or optimizing AI-powered reporting, internal tools, or operational workflows

Nice To Haves

Background at a top-tier consulting firm (MBB or equivalent)
Familiarity with agentic workflows, MCP integrations, or multi-system automation architectures
Background in fintech, crypto, payments, or complex operational environments
Exposure to cost optimization in AI workflows (e.g., managing API usage, token efficiency, scaling automation)
Experience with Claude Projects, Anthropic API, or similar LLM-based development

Responsibilities

Co-own the automation stack
Partner directly with leadership
Act as a force multiplier across the business
Own the roadmap end-to-end from opportunity identification through design, build, and scale
Own the AI automation roadmap for PWS — identify, prioritize, build, ship
Build and deploy agentic workflows and AI-powered tools (Claude-based assistants, automated reporting, pipeline systems, internal bots) that eliminate manual work
Step into ambiguous, under-owned processes and bring structure, automation, and speed
Partner across Sales, Product, Engineering, Legal, Finance, and Compliance to translate business problems into automation solutions
Improve and optimize existing automations for cost efficiency, reliability, and scale
Drive 0 → 1 initiatives — from problem discovery to prototype to production
Establish best practices for AI tooling, prompt engineering, and workflow design across the organization
Advise leadership on where AI creates the most operational leverage and shape the long-term vision for AI-native operations at Kraken