Staff Engineer / Team Lead – Advisory Suite

Alpaca; Canada; Remote; CAD 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading financial technology firm is seeking an experienced backend engineer to own the architecture for its advisory suite. The ideal candidate will have over 8 years of experience and strong expertise in financial systems. This role involves leading complex projects and mentoring engineers while fostering a collaborative environment. Competitive salary and stock options are offered, along with new hire setup benefits.

Benefits

Competitive Salary & Stock Options

New Hire Home-Office Setup: One-time USD $500

Monthly Stipend: USD $150

Qualifications

• 8+ years of backend or platform engineering experience.
• Deep expertise in financial domains preferred.
• Proven ability to design and scale complex distributed systems.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end architecture for the advisory suite.
• Lead design and development of complex financial systems.
• Mentor senior and mid-level engineers.

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems design

Financial domain expertise

Mentoring engineers

Strong communication

Job description

Overview

Remote - EMEA - NA

Alpaca is a US-headquartered self-clearing broker-dealer and brokerage infrastructure for stocks, ETFs, options, crypto, fixed income, 24/5 trading, and more. Our recent Series C funding round brings our total investment to over $170 million, fueling our ambitious vision.

Amongst our subsidiaries, Alpaca is a licensed financial services company, serving hundreds of financial institutions across 40 countries with our institutional-grade APIs. This includes broker-dealers, investment advisors, wealth managers, hedge funds, and crypto exchanges, totaling over 6 million brokerage accounts.

Our global team is a diverse group of experienced engineers, traders, and brokerage professionals who are working to achieve our mission of opening financial services to everyone on the planet. We are committed to open-source contributions and fostering a vibrant community, continuously enhancing our award-winning, developer-friendly API and the robust infrastructure behind it.

Alpaca is backed by top-tier global investors, including Portage Ventures, Spark Capital, Tribe Capital, Social Leverage, Horizons Ventures, Unbound, SBI Group, Derayah Financial, Elefund, and Y Combinator.

Our Team Members:

We are a dynamic team of 230+ globally distributed members who thrive working from our favorite places around the world, with teammates spanning the USA, Canada, Japan, Hungary, Nigeria, Brazil, the UK, and beyond.

We are searching for passionate individuals eager to contribute to Alpaca's rapid growth. If you align with our core values—Stay Curious, Have Empathy, and Be Accountable—and are ready to make a significant impact, we encourage you to apply.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end architecture for the advisory suite, ensuring scalability, modularity, and correctness
• Lead design and development of complex financial systems, including:
• Trade aggregators with execution-aware strategies (VWAP, TWAP)
• Tax-aware investment strategies using lot-level accounting
• Fixed income support with yield calculations, bond ladders, etc.
• Drive technical planning, sprint scoping, and cross-functional alignment with product and quant teams
• Mentor senior and mid-level engineers, foster engineering best practices
• Set and uphold standards for code quality, observability, and performance
• Collaborate with leadership on roadmap priorities, and help steer product evolution (e.g., direct indexing, advisory fee modelling)

Who You Are (Must-Haves)

• 8+ years of backend or platform engineering experience, with 2+ years in a lead or staff role
• Deep expertise in financial domains (portfolio construction, trading, tax, or fixed income preferred)
• Proven ability to design and scale complex distributed systems, preferably in Golang
• Strong communication skills with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Experience mentoring engineers and leading cross-functional projects
• Exposure to financial regulations, tax constraints, or fee structures is a plus

How We Take Care of You

• Competitive Salary & Stock Options
• New Hire Home-Office Setup: One-time USD $500
• Monthly Stipend: USD $150 per month via a Brex Card

Alpaca is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace dedicated to pursuing and hiring a diverse workforce.