Who you are

• 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
• An understanding of cloud-based modern architecture, infrastructure, and orchestration practices is also a great asset we are actively looking for
• 10+ years of backend engineering experience, with 4+ years in a lead role
• Proven ability to design and scale complex distributed systems, preferably in Go
• Experience with managing and maintaining large and complex code bases
• Strong communication skills with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Experience managing and mentoring engineers and leading cross-functional projects
• Strong problem-solving skills paired with a proactive mindset
• A preference for simple and elegant solutions
• Experience with cloud platforms, preferably Google Cloud Platform
• Extensive knowledge relational databases, preferably PostgreSQL
• Proven experience in building and maintaining microservices
• Ability to write clean, well-tested, and maintainable code
• Ability to turn business requirements into a flexible implementation model
• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration technologies, especially Kubernetes
• Experience in the finance industry
• Experience with financial identity management, e.g. KYC
• Experience with messaging queues and message brokers
• Experience integrating with external services
• Experience working remotely
• Experience working at a startup
• DevOps mindset

What the job involves

• As a team lead, you will drive building and scaling the systems and services that form Alpaca's foundation and empower millions of users who trade billions of dollars worth of assets
• The identity team is responsible for building a modern platform for onboarding users, verifying their identity, evaluating risk, and managing their trading accounts
• These people, businesses, and accounts are foundational components of the Alpaca system, and we need to build new capabilities while achieving very high automation rates
• We are expanding the platform to handle identity verification on a global basis and to support our growing set of account types
• We are looking for a staff engineer level Team Lead who is keen on providing quality solutions, has proven experience building and architecting at scale, and is not afraid of challenging conventions or voicing their opinions
• In this role, you will have the autonomy to design and implement solutions to achieve defined goals while actively participating in defining those goals
• Own end-to-end architecture for the identity suite, ensuring scalability, modularity, and maintainability
• Drive technical planning, sprint scoping, and cross-functional alignment with product 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)
• Contribute to a core system that millions of end users will rely on
• Help us create a global financial identity verification and risk management service
• Implement backend services and work on designing an architecture where reliability matters
• Take ownership of tasks, identify and address technical challenges proactively, and propose innovative solutions
• Participate in code reviews
• Troubleshooting on incidents and reported bugs
• You may be asked to be on-call to assist with engineering projects that are timely in nature

Benefits

• Competitive Salary & Stock Options
• Benefits: Health benefits start on day 1. In the US this includes Medical, Dental, Vision. In Canada, this includes supplemental health care. Internationally, this includes a stipend value to offset medical costs
• New Hire Home-Office Setup: One-time USD $500
• Monthly Stipend: USD $150 per month via a Brex Card
• Work with awesome people, clients and partners from around the world