VP Data - Breakout Prop

Kraken

1d • Remote

About The Position

Kraken is a mission-focused, fully remote company dedicated to accelerating the global adoption of crypto. Breakout Prop, a crypto-native proprietary trading platform founded in 2023 and recently acquired by Kraken, is at a pivotal stage with exceptional growth. The Breakout Prop team is lean, consisting of 35 individuals, where data is central to trading, risk management, and decision-making, making this role a core part of their competitive edge. The VP of Data will report directly to the COO and be responsible for evolving the existing data function into a mature, company-wide capability.

Requirements

• 10+ years in data engineering, data warehousing, or a senior data infrastructure role
• Expert-level SQL and data manipulation skills using Spark, PySpark, or equivalent big data frameworks, with proven experience processing high-volume, high-velocity datasets
• Deep expertise in data lake and data warehousing technologies and data modeling best practices (Presto, Athena, Glue, Snowflake, Databricks, or equivalent)
• Extensive experience designing and operating data pipelines and ETL/ELT workflows in Airflow or similar orchestration frameworks, with solid grounding in software design principles
• Strong Python proficiency
• Hands-on experience translating complex business requirements into robust data sourcing and modeling solutions
• Exposure to data mesh or data product frameworks
• Proven track record leading and growing data teams, hiring, mentoring, and setting engineering standards
• Experience operating as a senior stakeholder, translating data strategy into business outcomes for a CEO or executive team
• Track record of evolving a data function through a growth inflection, scaling what exists, not just maintaining it
• Ability to balance hands-on technical contribution with organisational leadership

Nice To Haves

• Familiarity with streaming technologies such as Kafka or Apache Flink is a strong plus
• Experience in a high-growth startup, post-acquisition integration environment, or regulated industry (fintech or crypto a plus)
• Passionate or knowledgeable about crypto

Responsibilities

• Take ownership of an existing data function and scale it to match Breakout's next stage of growth
• Report directly to the COO with full mandate to elevate data maturity across the business
• Evolve current pipelines and infrastructure into a reliable, scalable data platform
• Expand self-serve analytics so every team can access insight without depending on engineering
• Grow and lead the data team, hiring, mentoring, and setting the bar for craft
• Establish data governance, quality standards, and a shared data model that the whole company trusts
• Build data products where AI agents are first-class consumers of the data layer — the analytics framework already serves LLM-based tools, and you'll extend this into a core capability
• Leverage Kraken's global infrastructure to accelerate what Breakout can build
• Partner with product, finance, ops, and growth to embed data into strategic decisions

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive
• Education Level: No Education Listed