VP Data - Breakout Prop

About Us

Kraken is a mission-focused company rooted in crypto values. Our Krakenites are a world-class team united by our desire to discover and unlock the potential of crypto and blockchain technology. As a fully remote company, we have Krakenites in 70+ countries who speak over 50 languages. Kraken is committed to industry-leading security, crypto education, and world-class client support through our products like Kraken Pro, Desktop, Wallet, and Kraken Futures.

About Breakout Prop

Breakout Prop is a crypto-native proprietary trading platform backed by Kraken. Founded in 2023 by industry veterans, we combine deep liquidity, cutting-edge technology, and world-class risk management to create an unparalleled trading experience. Recently acquired by Kraken, we now have access to global infrastructure and a trusted brand. We're a lean, high-conviction team of 35 where every hire genuinely shapes the company. Data sits at the heart of how we trade, how we manage risk, and how we make decisions, which means this role isn't a support function, it's a core part of our competitive edge.

The Role

Reporting directly to the COO, the VP of Data will take what's been built and evolve it into a mature, company-wide capability. You'll work alongside traders, engineers, and operators who move fast, think rigorously, and hold each other to a high bar.

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

Requirements

Technical Depth

• 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; familiarity with streaming technologies such as Kafka or Apache Flink is a strong plus
• Hands-on experience translating complex business requirements into robust data sourcing and modeling solutions
• Exposure to data mesh or data product frameworks

Leadership & Strategy

• 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
• Experience in a high-growth startup, post-acquisition integration environment, or regulated industry (fintech or crypto a plus)
• Ability to balance hands-on technical contribution with organisational leadership