Staff Software Engineer, New Market

Alpaca; United Arab Emirates; On-site; AED 367,242 - 514,138; Full time

Job summary

Alpaca in the United Arab Emirates is looking for a Staff Software Engineer to lead architectural design for financial infrastructure. You'll set the technical direction and establish standards for software engineering practices while ensuring compliance and performance.

Ideal candidates have 10+ years of experience, expertise in Go, and a proven ability in building scalable applications. Strong mentorship skills and a deep understanding of cloud infrastructure are desired.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience with a track record of building complex systems.
• Expert-level mastery of Go or similar backend languages.
• Deep understanding of software engineering fundamentals, algorithms, and system design principles.

Responsibilities

• Lead complex multi-team software initiatives from conception to delivery.
• Architect foundational software systems using Go.
• Design and implement scalable, maintainable software systems.

Skills

Go

System design and architecture

Event-driven architectures

Cloud infrastructure (GCP, AWS, Azure)

Containerization (Docker, Kubernetes)

Scalable applications

Problem-solving

Job description

Role Overview

Your Role As a Staff Software Engineer at Alpaca Middle East you will be a strategic technical leader responsible for architecting, designing and establishing the foundational software systems that power Alpaca's financial infrastructure in the region. Your primary responsibility will be setting the technical direction for our software engineering practices, establishing architectural standards and patterns, and ensuring our systems meet regulatory compliance requirements while maintaining world‑class reliability, scalability and performance.

Responsibilities

• Lead complex multi‑team software initiatives from conception to delivery, resolving systemic issues that impact the entire organization and establishing high standards for quality through innovative design solutions and engineering excellence.
• Architect and establish foundational software systems using Go or similar languages, setting the technical direction for organizational software development.
• Design and establish event‑driven architectures, message queues and asynchronous processing patterns that serve as organizational standards.
• Build and maintain APIs, services and integrations that power Alpaca's financial infrastructure, establishing architectural patterns and best practices.
• Optimize system performance at scale, identifying bottlenecks and implementing efficient solutions that influence organizational performance standards.
• Ensure systems meet reliability, scalability and regulatory compliance requirements, establishing compliance frameworks for the organization.
• Establish coding standards and best practices and write clean, maintainable and well‑tested code that serves as examples for the organization.
• Design and implement scalable, maintainable and performant systems that meet business requirements and serve as architectural blueprints.
• Demonstrate exceptional technical competency recognized across the organization and industry, serving as the ultimate authority across multiple areas including design, architecture and performance optimization.
• Lead multi‑team initiatives, establish organizational standards and best practices, and resolve systemic issues that impact the entire organization.
• Provide strategic guidance and solutions that influence organizational technical direction and maintain high standards for quality.
• Evaluate and recommend strategic technical solutions, considering trade‑offs between performance, maintainability, cost and long‑term business objectives.
• Establish infrastructure coordination frameworks and strategies with DevOps and vendors for regional deployments.
• Travel occasionally within the Middle East region for strategic on‑site work and vendor coordination.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience with a proven track record of architecting and building complex, production systems at scale.
• Expert‑level mastery of Go or similar backend languages, with exceptional system design and architecture skills, and the ability to establish organizational architectural standards.
• Proven track record of building scalable, high‑availability applications that handle complex business logic and high transaction volumes, with experience establishing organizational scalability patterns.
• Deep understanding of software engineering fundamentals, including data structures, algorithms and system design principles, with the ability to establish organizational engineering practices.
• Extensive experience with event‑driven architectures, message queues, pub/sub systems and asynchronous processing patterns, with the ability to establish organizational architectural patterns.
• Proven ability to independently lead complex, multi‑team software initiatives and resolve systemic issues that impact the entire organization.
• Exceptional problem‑solving skills with the ability to debug complex issues across multiple systems and establish preventive measures.
• Extensive experience with testing methodologies, including unit tests, integration tests and end‑to‑end tests, with the ability to establish organizational testing standards.
• Deep expertise with cloud infrastructure (GCP, AWS, Azure) and containerization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes), with strategic understanding of hybrid and multi‑cloud architectures.
• Demonstrated leadership within executive and strategic discussions, recognized as the ultimate authority on challenging technical issues across the organization.
• Proven ability to influence organizational practices, strategic project direction and cross‑team collaborations at the highest levels.
• Experience playing a leading role in setting organizational processes and standards, shaping long‑term software strategies and technical vision.
• Exceptional mentorship capabilities with experience actively mentoring engineers across all levels (junior, intermediate, and senior) and fostering a culture of knowledge sharing and continuous improvement.
• Track record of consistently owning strategic initiative outcomes and providing guidance that influences organizational technical direction.
• Obsession with performant, defect‑free, maintainable code and systems, establishing organizational quality standards.
• Ability to identify root causes and implement long‑term strategic solutions that prevent future issues, not just quick fixes.
• Ability to balance multiple strategic priorities and work effectively in a fast‑paced environment while maintaining focus on long‑term objectives.
• Willingness and ability to travel occasionally within the Middle East region for strategic on‑site work and vendor coordination.
• Experience working with financial systems, APIs or fintech applications (Preferred).
• Understanding of financial transaction processing, accounting principles or regulatory compliance (Preferred).
• Familiarity with domain‑driven design and event‑driven design patterns (Preferred).
• Experience with distributed systems, microservices and service‑oriented architectures (Preferred).