# Session: Kraken (Payward) — Site Reliability Engineer, AI Agents

## JD Info
- **File:** JDs/kraken_sre_ai_agents.txt
- **JD source:** live scrape 2026-06-15 via Playwright (Ashby board)
- **URL:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kraken.com/c331de1b-b75a-48f5-9d19-0e56ccb935ab
- **Role:** Site Reliability Engineer – AI Agents (AI Infrastructure team, within Data org)
- **Company:** Kraken / Payward — crypto exchange, 15 yrs, 10M+ users, 70+ countries
- **Bundle:** Data Platform / Infra (primary) + ML/AI Engineer (secondary bridge)
- **Format:** Resume (2-page, resume.cls) + 1-page cover letter
- **Salary/Details:** Not stated (Kraken does not publish CH band). Remote, Switzerland-eligible. Verify clears 180k+ all-in before final send.

## JD Analysis
### Requirements
| # | Requirement | Match | Evidence |
|---|-------------|-------|----------|
| 1 | 5+ yrs SRE / Infra / Platform Engineer in production | Direct | Swisscom DevOps/K8s/on-call (2023–present) + Bosch App Owner/infra (2020–22) = 5+ yrs combined platform ownership |
| 2 | Hands-on ML infra / model serving / MLOps in production | Direct | BS-1: containerized + orchestrated ML inference (Docker/K8s/Ansible) into 24/7 production line |
| 3 | Building developer platforms, internal tooling, APIs/SDKs consumed at scale | Bridge (HIGH) | SW-7: self-serve governed data products consumed by downstream teams; BS-2: multi-language data services consumed by analysis teams. Not literally "SDKs" — frame as platform/services consumed by eng teams |
| 4 | Platform-eng principles: DX, self-service infra, API-driven design | Bridge (HIGH) | SW-7: decentralized Data Mesh = self-serve, discoverable, governed data-products model |
| 5 | IaC, particularly Terraform | Bridge (MED) | SW-1/SW-7: CloudFormation IaC (full provisioning). Terraform NOT used — frame as transferable IaC, never claim Terraform. (User confirmed.) |
| 6 | Containerization + orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker) | Direct | SW-3 (K8s+GitLab) + BS-1 (K8s/Docker/Ansible) — two employers |
| 7 | Cloud infra, preferably AWS | Direct | SW-1 (S3/Glue/Athena/Redshift/Airflow/CloudFormation), SW-7 (AWS Data Mesh). AWS SAA cert. |
| 8 | Strong scripting (bash/shell) + Python | Direct | Python primary across SW-2/3, BS-2; bash/shell in CI/CD ops |
| 9 | Observability, monitoring, alerting systems | Direct | BS-4: ELK + Kafka + Grafana + Prometheus + Loki full stack |
| 10 | Incident response + on-call rotations | Direct | SW-2 (on-call SLA, 2nd/3rd-level), BS-3 (App Owner SLOs, 24/7) |
| 11 | Collaboration across data/AI/eng teams | Direct | SW-4 (PO/stakeholder), BS-3 (cross-team adoption) |
| 12 | High ownership in fast-moving production | Direct | Component Owner (Swisscom) + Application Owner (Bosch) titles |
| NTH | Infra for agent-based / LLM systems | Bridge (MED) | SW-7: agentic data foundation (governed data products agents query); LiteLLM gateway |
| NTH | Agent orchestration frameworks (LangGraph, CrewAI) | **Gap** | Do NOT claim. Config bans LangChain/LangGraph fabrication. Verified toolchain: Kiro, Copilot, LiteLLM, custom GPTs |
| NTH | Data infra (Airflow, Kafka, Spark, data lake) | Direct | SW-1 (Airflow), SW-2 (Kafka), SW-6 (PySpark), Swisscom Data Lake |
| NTH | CI/CD + deployment automation for AI/ML | Direct | SW-3 (GitLab CI/CD), FC-1 (Jenkins from zero) |
| NTH | Eval frameworks / model perf monitoring at scale | Bridge (LOW) | BS-4 monitoring/anomaly detection — weak; don't oversell |
| NTH | 0→1 / platform-building teams | Bridge (MED) | FC-1 (introduced CI/CD from zero), BS-4 (observability PoC) |
| NTH | Cloudflare ecosystem (Zero Trust, networking) | Gap | Minor; omit |

### ATS Keywords
- **Platform/Infra:** SRE, Site Reliability, Platform Engineering, Infrastructure as Code, IaC, Kubernetes, Docker, AWS, CI/CD, self-service infrastructure, developer experience
- **ML/AI:** ML infrastructure, model serving, MLOps, model inference, agentic, LLM-powered systems, AI infrastructure
- **Data:** data infrastructure, Airflow, Kafka, Spark, data lake, data products, data engineering
- **Reliability:** observability, monitoring, alerting, incident response, on-call, SLO/SLA, runbooks
- **Tools:** Terraform (IaC — bridge via CloudFormation), Kubernetes, Docker, AWS, GitLab CI/CD, Grafana, Prometheus, ELK, Python, bash
- **Soft:** high ownership, cross-team collaboration, fast-moving / high-stakes production, platform adoption

### Gap Assessment
- **Direct:** SRE/platform tenure, production ML serving (BS-1), K8s+Docker, AWS, Python/bash, observability stack, on-call/incident response, data infra (Kafka/Airflow/Spark), CI/CD, ownership mindset
- **Bridge:** dev-platform/SDK consumption (SW-7/BS-2, HIGH); platform-eng DX/self-service (SW-7, HIGH); IaC→Terraform (CloudFormation, MED); agent/LLM infra (SW-7 agentic foundation, MED); 0→1 (FC-1, MED)
- **Gap (do NOT claim):** Agent orchestration frameworks (LangGraph/CrewAI), Cloudflare Zero Trust, formal LLM eval frameworks. Honest gaps — Kraken explicitly invites applicants who don't meet every req.

## Company Context
- **Mission:** "Building the Future of Open Finance" — Payward (Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, CF Benchmarks). 15 yrs building globally accessible financial infrastructure; advance an open global financial system.
- **This role:** AI Infrastructure team sits *within the Data org* — builds/operates/scales the systems powering AI agents in production (internal + external). Owns orchestration, execution, model-serving layers under agentic workflows. Explicitly a **platform engineering team**: builds APIs/SDKs/platform capabilities so AI/Data/Eng teams consume agent infra as a service. Success = beyond ops → DX, platform adoption, long-term scalability.
- **Real stack (web research):** EKS/Kubernetes, Terraform + Nomad IaC, AWS + on-prem private connectivity, GitOps (ArgoCD/Flux evaluated), Docker, Cilium CNI. Ships 100+ versions/day to 25+ environments across 10+ countries. Engineering blog at engineering.kraken.tech.
- **Agentic context:** Kraken shipped the first crypto CLI built for AI agents (open-source, MCP server, Claude Code/Cursor compatible, 134 commands). Building an "AI-native finance operating system" / agentic finance layer across 70+ regulated entities.
- **Culture:** Crypto-native, high-ownership, fast-moving 0→1, fully remote/global, ships fast. "Apply even if you don't meet all reqs, especially if passionate about crypto."
- **"Why them" angle:** Dennis is a Kraken customer since 2017, holds BTC+ETH, writes Solidity in free time — genuine crypto-native fit. Pair with production platform/ML-infra ownership. He brings the production discipline (on-call, observability, governed data foundation) that the JD says it needs to "harden agent infrastructure."

## Framing Strategy
- **Lead narrative:** "Production-discipline platform engineer who has put ML inference into a 24/7 line and now owns the cloud-native, governed data foundation that agentic workflows run on — exactly the intersection of data infrastructure and applied AI this team works at."
- **Reframing map:**
  - Data Mesh / data products → "self-service platform consumed by engineering teams" (DX/API-driven platform)
  - ML inference containerization (BS-1) → "ML infrastructure / model serving in production"
  - CloudFormation → "Infrastructure as Code (IaC)" (transferable to Terraform; never claim Terraform)
  - ELK/Grafana/Prometheus → "observability, monitoring & alerting for production systems"
  - Component/Application Owner + on-call → "incident response, SLOs, reliability ownership"
  - SW-7 governed data foundation → "the data layer agentic workflows query" (agentic bridge)
- **Emphasize:** Kubernetes (×2 employers), production ML serving (BS-1), AWS, observability stack, on-call/SLO ownership, self-serve data platform, IaC
- **Downplay:** semiconductor-domain specifics (keep ML-infra angle, drop fab jargon); BI/analytics framing; pure-DE "Fulfillment domain" context (lead with platform/reliability instead)
- **CL hooks:** (1) Kraken CLI for AI agents + MCP/agentic finance layer ↔ Dennis's governed data foundation for agentic workflows; (2) "intersection of data infrastructure and applied AI" = literal description of his SW-7 + BS-1 combo; (3) crypto-native: customer since 2017, holds BTC+ETH, Solidity; (4) production discipline (on-call, observability) for hardening agent infra.
- **User directives:** IaC framed as transferable, NO Terraform by name. Build Kraken now; Google Senior DE shelved for later.

## Critique Context
- **Reviewer persona:** A hands-on SRE/platform eng hiring manager on the AI Infrastructure team (Data org). Cares about production discipline, real K8s/AWS/IaC/observability ownership, MLOps reality, and whether candidate thinks in platform/DX terms — not buzzwords. Crypto-curious is a plus. Bored by analytics/BI framing and by inflated solo-ownership claims.
- **Competitive landscape:** Other applicants = career SREs/platform engineers with Terraform + EKS + MLOps tooling (Kubeflow/Ray/Seldon) and possibly crypto-firm experience. The "obvious fit" has dedicated SRE title + Terraform + LLM-serving stack. Dennis's edge: production ML-into-fab story, governed agentic data foundation, AND authentic crypto fluency — a combination few have.
- **Domain vocabulary (insider):** self-service platform, golden paths, paved road, SLO/error budget, GitOps, IaC drift, model serving, inference latency, agent orchestration, observability/telemetry, on-call rotation, runbooks, MCP, agentic workflows.

## Cover Letter Plan
- **Institution type:** Crypto-native, fast-moving, fully-remote tech company; platform/SRE audience
- **Paragraph count:** 4 paragraphs, ~270 words
- **P1 hook:** Kraken CLI for AI agents / MCP + agentic finance layer → "intersection of data infrastructure and applied AI" mirrors my own work; + crypto-native (customer since 2017)
- **P2-P3 evidence:** P2 = production platform/reliability (K8s ×2, AWS migration + IaC, observability stack, on-call/SLO ownership). P3 = ML-infra + agentic data foundation (BS-1 production ML serving + SW-7 governed self-serve data products that agentic workflows query)
- **Domain pivot:** IaC (CloudFormation) transferable to their Terraform/Nomad stack — state honestly, don't overclaim
- **Jargon level:** Technical (platform/SRE audience)
- **"Why them" hook:** Crypto-native + production discipline = bring reliability engineering to emerging agentic tech, which the JD explicitly asks for

## Bullet Plan (CONFIRMED 2026-06-15)

Crypto decision: signal ON résumé (Skills group 4 = "Programming & Crypto/Web3": Solidity, smart contracts, on-chain fundamentals — free-time/personal, honest per [[user_crypto]]) + full "why them" story in CL. Generali: keep all 3 (page fill, proven).

### Position 1 — Swisscom (6 bullets, 12 lines)
| # | ID | Achievement | Variant | Rationale |
|---|-----|------------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | SW-3 | K8s + GitLab CI/CD (lead) | 2L | Platform/SRE lead — K8s, CI/CD |
| 2 | SW-7 | Data Mesh self-serve data products consumed by eng teams + agentic data layer | 2L | Platform-as-service + agentic bridge. SCOPE object: "within Swisscom's company-wide Data Mesh" |
| 3 | SW-1 | AWS migration + CloudFormation IaC | 2L | AWS + IaC (transferable to Terraform; never name Terraform) |
| 4 | SW-2 | Component Owner, on-call SLA | 2L | Reliability / incident response |
| 5 | SW-4 | Data products + automation + 3rd-level RCA | 2L | Reliability / RCA |
| 6 | SW-6 | PySpark distributed processing | 2L | Spark (named NTH) + data infra |

### Position 2 — Bosch (4 bullets, 8 lines)
| # | ID | Achievement | Variant | Rationale |
|---|-----|------------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | BS-1 | ML inference containerization, 24/7 prod (flagship) | 2L | "ML infra / model serving in production" — core req |
| 2 | BS-4 | ELK + Grafana + Prometheus + Loki observability | 2L | Observability/monitoring/alerting |
| 3 | BS-3 | Application Owner — SLOs, reliability | 2L | SLO/reliability ownership |
| 4 | BS-2 | Multi-language data services consumed by teams | 2L | Platform consumers bridge |

### Position 3 — Fraunhofer (2 bullets, 4 lines)
| # | ID | Achievement | Variant | Rationale |
|---|-----|------------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | FC-1 | First Jenkins CI/CD from zero (0→1) + SCEDAS | 2L | "0→1 / platform-building" (named NTH) |
| 2 | FC-3 | Containerized microservices (Express.js/Docker) | 2L | Docker/microservices |

### Position 4 — Vizrt (2 bullets, 4 lines)
| # | ID | Achievement | Variant | Rationale |
|---|-----|------------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | VZ-1 | Distributed real-time backend (Python/C++) | 2L | Distributed backend; CNN/BBC scale |
| 2 | VZ-2 | A/V test suite + CI/CD quality gates | 2L | CI/CD |

### Position 5 — Generali (3 bullets, 6 lines)
| # | ID | Achievement | Variant | Rationale |
|---|-----|------------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | GN-1 | BDD + CI/CD ownership (Jenkins) | 2L | CI/CD initiative |
| 2 | GN-3 | Java/J2EE, XLDeploy, Camel/Spring Boot | 2L | Java breadth / page fill |
| 3 | GN-2 | UIPath RPA PoC | 2L | Page fill |

**Budget:** 17 variable bullets (34 rendered lines) + Skills 13 lines (4-3-2-2-2). Matches proven QuantCo 2-page fill. Verify at page-fill gate.

## Output Files
- Resume: `output/Kraken_SRE_AI_Agents/e2e_kraken_sre_ai_agents_resume.tex` (+ .pdf, 2 pages)
- Cover Letter: `output/Kraken_SRE_AI_Agents/e2e_kraken_sre_ai_agents_cover_letter.tex` (+ .pdf, 1 page, ~287 words)
- Critique: PENDING

## Status
- Phase 0: DONE
- Phase 1: DONE (17 confirmed → 18 generated; added SW-5 security bullet to close JD access-controls req + page fill)
- Phase 2 Resume:
  - Summary: DONE (548 chars)
  - Skills: DONE (4-3-2-2-2, crypto/Web3 group added)
  - Position 1 Swisscom (7 bullets): DONE
  - Position 2 Bosch (4 bullets): DONE
  - Position 3 Fraunhofer (2 bullets): DONE
  - Position 4 Vizrt (2 bullets): DONE
  - Position 5 Generali (3 bullets): DONE
  - Compile: DONE (2 pages, MiKTeX)
- Cover Letter: DONE (1 page, ~287 words; P1 hook = Kraken open-source AI-agent CLI + MCP, verified; crypto-native + production-discipline narrative; IaC honest CloudFormation-not-Terraform)
- Critique: CURRENT (87.2/100, 2026-06-15). PASS all gates; CL 299w/1pg, resume 2pg clean. Tier 1 = inject "developer experience/API-driven" vocab into SW-7 platform bullet + a skills line (JD's most-weighted theme, under-served). Honest gaps: Terraform, dedicated SRE title, agent-orchestration frameworks (do NOT fabricate). Crypto + production-ML edge is the lever. Ceiling ~90.
- **FINALIZED 2026-06-15** — submit-ready at 87.2, Tier 1 declined (finalize as-is). Submission PDFs: Dennis_Thiessen_Resume.pdf + Dennis_Thiessen_Cover_Letter.pdf
- **SENT 2026-06-15** — applied via Ashby. Comp unknown — verify clears 180k+ at recruiter stage. Await response.
- **CLOSED — REJECTED 2026-06-17** — Absage, no interview. Honest gaps (Terraform / dedicated SRE title / agent-orchestration frameworks) the likely filter; package was strong (87.2) but this req wanted closer infra/SRE pedigree. Do not reattempt this exact req.
- **Critique file:** output/Kraken_SRE_AI_Agents/critique_kraken_sre_ai_agents.md
- **Before send:** verify comp clears 180k+ all-in (Kraken does not publish CH band)
- Phase 2 Resume: PENDING
- Cover Letter: PENDING
- Critique: PENDING
- **Next:** (Phase 1 — bullet plan, this session)
- **Next CL:** /make-cl output/Kraken_SRE_AI_Agents/session_kraken_sre_ai_agents.md
- **Next Critique:** /critique output/Kraken_SRE_AI_Agents/session_kraken_sre_ai_agents.md
