Staff Software Engineer - New Markets Singapore/SEA

Your Role:

As a Staff Software Engineer, you will be responsible for architecting, designing, and implementing the systems and services that form Alpaca's foundation and empower millions of users who trade billions of dollars worth of assets. You will serve as a technical leader with extensive influence that goes beyond the immediate team to affect the entire product's technical direction. You will be the founding technical lead for Singapore and the broader SEA region: leading regional recruitment, leading cross-functional projects, mentoring talent on our engineering principles and practices, and fostering Alpaca culture in the region. As the lead, you will also serve as the operational reliability and engineering lead and the incident commander during regional business hours, ensuring proactive 24x7 stability.

For this role, we are seeking a backend engineer who has built the middle- and back-office systems that are a broker-dealer's system of record — customer account management and KYC, pre-trade controls such as buying-power validation, post-trade processing, double-entry ledgers and books-and-records, clearing and settlement, custody, corporate actions, reconciliation, and regulatory reporting — for a firm serving end investors. This is not a front-office trading-systems role: experience limited to sell-side market-making, low-latency/high-frequency execution, quantitative trading strategy, or exchange-side trading infrastructure is not sufficient on its own. The ideal candidate has a track record of architecting solutions that span multiple products or services, acts as a mentor and consultant providing strategic technical insights, and can take a platform into new markets repeatedly as Alpaca expands across SEA.

Things You Get To Do:

• Architect and design highly scalable, mission-critical brokerage systems spanning multiple products or services.

• Develop and enhance middle- and back-office systems, including gRPC microservices, APIs, and third-party vendor integrations.

• Build customer account/PII systems, KYC/CDD/AML controls, and pre-trade multi-currency buying-power and margin engines.

• Partner with core teams to extend frameworks for regional languages, currencies, and regulations, starting with Singapore and expanding to SEA markets.

• Provide strategic technical insights and mentor engineers to shape the long-term engineering roadmap and foster technical growth.

• Lead cross-functional projects and establish engineering standards, code review practices, and decision-making frameworks.

• Serve as incident commander and operational reliability lead during regional business hours to ensure proactive 24/7 stability.

• Participate in on-call rotations and ensure timely response to production issues.

• Attend meetings held during Singapore business hours and occasional meetings with teams in other regions (including Japan, US, and EU).

• Lead technical integrations and recruitment for market launches, engaging with regional stakeholders and regulators like the MAS.

Who You Are (Must-Haves):

• Business-level English fluency, with the ability to collaborate effectively in English-only team meetings, design discussions, code reviews, and written documentation.

• Extensive hands-on experience building broker-dealer middle- and back-office systems of record (clearing, settlement, custody, corporate actions, reconciliation) serving end investors rather than trading desks.

• Proven track record architecting and developing complex financial systems grounded in a double-entry ledger and books-and-records model.

• Deep experience engineering customer account management infrastructure with sensitive PII handling, alongside KYC/CDD/AML and sanctions screening across the full account lifecycle.

• Demonstrated experience implementing pre-trade risk and eligibility controls, including real-time multi-currency buying-power calculation, margin requirements, and order validation.

• Advanced proficiency in Go or similar modern backend languages, with extensive production experience designing high-throughput REST and gRPC microservices.

• Deep architectural background in domain-driven design (DDD) and event-driven distributed systems for high-availability financial applications.

• Thorough familiarity with Singapore regulatory requirements (MAS, Securities and Futures Act, MAS Notice SFA04-N02 on AML/CFT) and broader Southeast Asian financial markets.

• Working knowledge of regional data protection laws and compliance standards for sensitive client data, specifically the Singapore PDPA.

• Proven ability to balance hands-on architecture with leadership, mentoring engineers, driving technical decisions, and shaping roadmaps beyond the immediate team.

• Ability to lead and troubleshoot incidents or bugs with authority during Singapore business hours.

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

• Residence in Singapore

• Experience launching products in multiple SEA markets (e.g., Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines)

• Proficiency in an additional regional language (e.g., Mandarin, Bahasa Indonesia/Malay, Thai, Vietnamese)

• Experience working in a startup or fast-growing technology company

• Experience managing vendors and organizational budgeting

• Experience with microservices, service mesh, and distributed systems at scale; cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, Azure) and Kubernetes