Senior Software Engineer – Agent Developer Platform

Alpaca; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Health benefits

Home-office setup (USD 500)

Monthly stipend (USD 150)

Job summary

Alpaca, a US-headquartered, global leader in brokerage infrastructure, is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to build the developer platform that agents and partners use to integrate and build on. You evolve Alpaca’s MCP servers, tools, and skills, and you build the APIs behind them. You play a central role to define the architecture that provides the fastest time to market for integrators.

Builders who embed Alpaca for their end users all use this surface. This is a hands-on role.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering with ownership of production systems.
• Shipped a developer-facing API, SDK, or platform.
• Experience with MCP or related standards in production.
• Strong API design, schemas, compatibility and reliable responses.
• Proficient in Python or TypeScript; willing to work in Go.
• Strong architectural judgment and shipping under evolving requirements.
• Good communication with product, compliance and risk teams.

Responsibilities

• Design and build the developer platform: MCP servers, tools, and APIs.
• Evolve the platform as MCP protocol and standards change.
• Create new APIs for trading and account capabilities.
• Decide components the platform renders to accelerate app development.
• Maintain production reliability and quality for services you build.
• Mentor engineers and raise design and implementation quality.

Skills

5+ years experience

Shipped API/SDK

MCP architecture

API design

Python

TypeScript

Go

Architectural judgment

Clear communication

Job description

Who We Are:

Alpaca is a US-headquartered, global leader in agent-first brokerage infrastructure for stocks, ETFs, options, crypto, fixed income, 24/5 trading, and more. 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, totalling over 10 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're deeply 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 proudly backed by $400 million in funding from top-tier global investors including Portage Ventures, Spark Capital, Tribe Capital, Social Leverage, Horizons Ventures, Opera Tech Ventures, SBI Group, Derayah Financial, Unbound, Peak XV, Elefund, and Y Combinator.

Our Team Members: We’re a dynamic team of 400+ 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're 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.

Your Role:

We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to build the developer platform that agents and partners use to integrate and build on. You evolve Alpaca’s MCP servers, tools, and skills, and you build the APIs behind them. You play a central role to define the architecture that provides the fastest time to market for integrators. Builders who embed Alpaca for their end users all use this surface. This is a hands-on role. You will lead through architecture, code, design reviews, and mentorship, and you will ship the first version yourself. You will partner with Product, Compliance, Risk, and Platform Engineering teams.

Things You Get To Do:

• Design and build Alpaca’s agent-facing developer platform: MCP servers, tools, skills, and the APIs behind them.
• Evolve that platform as the MCP protocol and connector, plugin, and skill standards change.
• Build new APIs that make trading and account capabilities available to apps and agents.
• Decide which components the platform renders, so developers and partners build apps faster from shared building blocks.
• Keep Alpaca’s execution model current with the MCP protocol and with connector, plugin, and skill standards, and translate what changes into the application architecture of the developer platform.
• Own production reliability and quality for the services you build.
• Mentor engineers and raise the quality of design and implementation in this area.

Who You Are (Must-Haves):

• 5+ years of software engineering experience, with ownership of production systems that other developers use.
• Shipped a developer-facing API, SDK, or platform as a primary contributor.
• Enough MCP architecture to work with stateless and stateful behavior, and experience building to MCP, or to connector, plugin, or skill standards, as they have changed in production.
• Strong API design, including schemas, compatibility, and responses other developers can rely on.
• Proficiency in Python or TypeScript, and a willingness to work primarily in Go.
• Strong architectural judgment, with a record of shipping while requirements are still being defined.
• Clear communication with engineers, product, compliance, and risk partners.

Who You Might Be (Nice-to-Haves):

• Experience shipping developer-facing tools, SDKs, or MCP servers.
• Experience building agents with a framework such as LangChain.
• Experience or understanding of financial markets.
• Production experience with Go.
• Experience working at a startup.
• Experience working remotely.

How We Take Care of You:

• Competitive Salary & Stock Options
• Health Benefits
• 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.

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