Product Manager, Clearing Systems

Alpaca

Chicago (IL)

On-site

USD 160,000 - 230,000

Full time

14 days+

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Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Health benefits

Home-office setup stipend

Monthly stipend

Job summary

Alpaca is seeking a senior product manager to own the clearing systems lifecycle within a rapidly scaling self-clearing broker‑dealer. You will define architecture, build prototype clearing services, and lead a cross‑functional team toward production‑grade infrastructure across custody, ledger, and asset movement.

You will collaborate with operations, finance, treasury, compliance, and legal to ensure scalable, compliant systems as Alpaca grows into a global, multi-asset, multi-currency clearing

Qualifications

5+ years in Product Management, technical program management, or engineering on brokerage, clearing, or post-trade infrastructure.
10+ years in brokerage, clearing, custody, prime brokerage, trading infrastructure, or capital markets tech.
Depth on at least one clearing surface: settlements, stock record, books and records, corporate actions, margin, ACATS, DTCC processing.
Highly technical; able to translate domain requirements into scalable designs with engineers.
Experience shipping in regulated broker-dealer environments.

Responsibilities

Design and build Alpaca's core clearing infrastructure across brokerage, custody, ledger, asset movement, and global expansion.
Define long-term architecture for clearing platform across accounts, balances, ledgers, settlements, and regulatory records.
Prototype and build new clearing services in collaboration with engineering and operations.
Work with legal, risk, finance, compliance to ensure scalable, regulator-ready platform.
Lead cross-functional teams to deliver production-grade clearing systems.

Skills

Product Management

Technical PM/Engineering collaboration

Brokerage infrastructure

Clearing infrastructure

Cross-functional leadership

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

Alpaca is building the next generation of global brokerage and clearing infrastructure. We are looking for a senior product manager who can own the clearing systems product lifecycle at a rapidly scaling self‑clearing broker‑dealer.

Your mission is to build and operate the systems and processes that keep Alpaca accurate, compliant, and on time across areas like core brokerage, clearing, ledger, custody, money movement, and multi‑currency infrastructure. You will make clearing scale reliably as Alpaca adds asset classes, account types, trading hours, and partner institutions, and as we run a true self‑clearing book at DTCC, OCC, and FICC.

This person should be able to walk into ambiguity, understand the full clearing lifecycle, design the architecture, build a working prototype, and lead a team toward production‑grade infrastructure. The role sits at the intersection of product, engineering, operations, finance, compliance, and regulatory infrastructure.

What You’ll Own

You will lead the design and buildout of Alpaca’s core clearing infrastructure across brokerage, custody, ledger, asset movement, and global market expansion.

This includes:

Defining the long‑term architecture for Alpaca’s clearing platform across accounts, positions, balances, ledgers, journals, settlements, stock record, and regulatory books and records.
Designing multi‑currency cash and position systems that can support global equities, FX, fractional trading, options, bonds, Treasuries, fixed income, mutual funds, and other asset classes.
Partnering with engineering to prototype and build new clearing services rather than relying only on third‑party service bureau workflows.
Working cross‑functionally with operations, finance, treasury, compliance, legal, risk, and product to ensure the platform is scalable, controlled, and regulator‑ready.
Translating complex clearing, custody, and regulatory requirements into clear product and engineering requirements.
Helping Alpaca grow from U.S.-centric brokerage infrastructure into a global, multi‑asset, multi‑currency clearing platform.

Who You Are (Must‑Haves)

5+ years in Product Management, technical program management, or engineering on brokerage, clearing, or post‑trade infrastructure.
10+ years of experience in brokerage, clearing, custody, prime brokerage, trading infrastructure, financial market infrastructure, or capital markets technology.
Demonstrated depth on at least one clearing surface: settlement and stock record, books and records, corporate actions, margin, ACATS, DTCC processing.
Highly technical. Ability to work directly with engineers and product teams to turn complex domain requirements into scalable system designs.
Comfort shipping in parallel with Compliance, Legal, and Operations in a regulated broker‑dealer environment.
Strong operating judgment to weigh risk, operational efficiency, capital allocation, tech feasibility, time, and budget.
Experience leading senior teams and influencing across functions in a high‑growth environment.

Who You Might Be (Nice‑to‑Haves)

You helped build, convert, or modernize corporate‑action processing, a security master, or a self‑clearing back office.
Experience with global brokerage expansion, including international equities, FX, local market custody, omnibus models, sub‑ledgers, and currency controls.
Familiarity with the B2B2C correspondent / broker‑as‑a‑service model.
AI‑native PM workflow: recurring use of tools like Cursor, Claude, ChatGPT, or custom agents in PRD drafting, incident synthesis, data exploration, and prototyping.

Example Problems You Should Be Comfortable Solving

How should stock record reconcile to DTC, custodians, omnibus providers, internal ledgers, trading systems, and customer‑facing balances?
How should global equities, FX, fractional shares, options, fixed income, Treasuries, and mutual funds fit into one clearing architecture?
How should a multi‑currency brokerage ledger represent trades, settlements, FX conversions, fees, financing, journals, and custody balances?
How should cashiering, ACH, wires, ACATS, journals, reversals, and transfer exceptions be represented in ledger and operations systems?
How should possession or control, segregation, fully paid lending, margin, reserve, and reconciliation controls be embedded into the platform instead of handled as manual after‑the‑fact processes?

How We Take Care of You: