--- title: 'Staff Software Engineer, New Markets Middle East at Alpaca' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-new-markets-middle-east-alpaca-middle-east-q25gezffsptw' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-10' --- # Staff Software Engineer, New Markets Middle East at Alpaca - **Company:** Alpaca - **Location:** Middle East - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-04-14 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/alpaca/jobs/5892645004 ## 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 As a Staff Software Engineer at Alpaca Middle East, you will be a strategic technical leader responsible for architecting, designing, and establishing the foundational software systems that power Alpaca's financial infrastructure in the region. Your primary responsibility will be setting the technical direction for our software engineering practices, establishing architectural standards and patterns, and ensuring our systems meet regulatory compliance requirements while maintaining world-class reliability, scalability, and performance. You will demonstrate exceptional technical depth and breadth across software engineering, serving as the recognized expert in system design, architecture, and performance optimization. You will independently lead complex, multi-team software initiatives, resolve systemic issues that impact the entire organization, and establish high standards for quality through innovative design solutions and engineering excellence. Your influence extends across the entire engineering organization, shaping software strategy, setting organizational processes and standards, and driving long-term technical vision. In addition to software development, you will establish strategic approaches for infrastructure coordination with regional deployments and cloud or data center operations as needed for UAE and Saudi markets. While day-to-day infrastructure work may be performed, you will define infrastructure coordination frameworks,, and ensure strategic alignment between software requirements and infrastructure capabilities. Occasional on-site or regional travel may be required for strategic technical reviews, and ensuring infrastructure meets operational and regulatory standards. This role requires exceptional problem-solving abilities, deep software engineering expertise recognized across the industry, and genuine care for system reliability, team dynamics, and organizational impact. You will serve as the ultimate technical authority on challenging software engineering issues, driving architectural decisions that impact multiple teams and systems. Your work will have organization-wide impact, influencing how software is designed, developed, and operated across Alpaca's Middle East operations. Things You Get To Do Software Architecture and Strategic Development - Architect and establish foundational software systems using Go or similar languages, setting technical direction for organizational software development - Design and establish event-driven architectures, message queues, and asynchronous processing patterns that serve as organizational standards - Build and maintain APIs, services, and integrations that power Alpaca's financial infrastructure, establishing architectural patterns and best practices - Optimize system performance at scale, identifying bottlenecks and implementing efficient solutions that influence organizational performance standards - Ensure systems meet reliability, scalability, and regulatory compliance requirements, establishing compliance frameworks for the organization - Establish coding standards and best practices, writing clean, maintainable, and well-tested code that serves as examples for the organization - Design and implement scalable, maintainable, and performant systems that meet business requirements and serve as architectural blueprints Technical Leadership and Strategic Expertise - Demonstrate exceptional technical competency recognized across the organization and industry, serving as the ultimate authority across multiple areas including design, architecture, and performance optimization - Lead complex, multi-team software initiatives from conception to delivery, establishing organizational standards and best practices - Resolve systemic issues that impact the entire organization, applying deep technical knowledge and innovative problem-solving approaches - Serve as the recognized expert on challenging technical issues, providing strategic guidance and solutions that influence organizational technical direction - Establish and maintain high standards for quality across the organization, ensuring robust testing, code review, and efficient design solutions - Evaluate and recommend strategic technical solutions, considering trade-offs between performance, maintainability, cost, and long-term business objectives, influencing organizational technical decisions Infrastructure Coordination and Strategic Management - Establish infrastructure coordination frameworks and strategies with DevOps and vendors for regional deployments. - Define organizational approaches for ensuring infrastructure meets software requirements, operational standards, and local data residency or regulatory requirements - Establish vendor management strategies for infrastructure services, ensuring service level agreements (SLAs) are met and defining organizational vendor relationship standards - Coordinate with cloud providers, data center vendors, and managed service providers for infrastructure-related activities, establishing organizational coordination practices - Define communication frameworks and coordinate activities between software development needs and infrastructure capabilities - Lead vendor meetings and strategic technical discussions to ensure alignment between software and infrastructure at the organizational level - Travel occasionally within the region to conduct strategic technical reviews and coordinate with vendors and DevOps on-site as required Mentoring and Organizational Knowledge Sharing - Actively mentor engineers across all levels (junior, intermediate, and senior), fostering a culture of knowledge sharing and continuous improvement across the organization - Provide strategic technical guidance and architectural review feedback that helps engineers grow their skills and make better technical decisions - Share knowledge through comprehensive documentation, technical talks, and organizational discussions that influence technical direction - Create learning opportunities across the organization through pair programming, design reviews, technical workshops, and establishing mentorship programs - Establish and evolve best practices and coding standards that improve organizational productivity and code quality Organizational Influence and Strategic Collaboration - Influence software practices, project direction, and cross-team collaborations across the entire engineering organization - Play a leading role in setting organizational processes and standards, shaping long-term software strategies and technical vision - Demonstrate leadership within executive and strategic discussions, driving architectural decisions and technical roadmaps that impact the entire organization - Collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams including product, design, business stakeholders, and executive leadership - Bridge technical and business perspectives at the strategic level, translating business requirements into technical solutions and technical vision - Lead cross-team initiatives, sharing expertise and aligning multiple teams on shared technical goals and software strategy Strategic Project Execution - Own the outcome of strategic initiatives that span multiple teams, ensuring they meet quality standards, timelines, and strategic business objectives - Break down complex organizational problems into manageable initiatives and coordinate execution across multiple teams - Proactively identify and mitigate strategic risks, ensuring smooth project delivery and establishing risk management practices - Balance multiple strategic priorities and initiatives, effectively managing time and resources while maintaining focus on long-term objectives - Communicate project status, technical challenges, and solutions clearly to stakeholders at all levels, including executive leadership Problem Solving and Quality - Exhibit exceptional problem-solving abilities and consistently drive organizational quality improvements - Debug complex issues across multiple systems, applying systematic troubleshooting approaches and establishing organizational debugging practices - Identify root causes and implement long-term strategic solutions that prevent future issues, not just quick fixes - Establish and improve development processes, tooling, and infrastructure practices across the organization - Advocate for quality improvements, including better testing, monitoring, and observability, establishing organizational quality standards ## Who You Are (Must-Haves) Technical Excellence - 10+ years of professional software engineering experience with a proven track record of architecting and building complex, production systems at scale - Exceptional technical competency recognized across the organization and industry, with deep expertise across multiple areas including design, architecture, and performance optimization - Expert-level mastery of Go or similar backend languages, with exceptional system design and architecture skills, and the ability to establish organizational architectural standards - Proven track record of building scalable, high-availability applications that handle complex business logic and high transaction volumes, with experience establishing organizational scalability patterns - Deep understanding of software engineering fundamentals, including data structures, algorithms, and system design principles, with the ability to establish organizational engineering practices - Extensive experience with event-driven architectures, message queues, pub/sub systems, and asynchronous processing patterns, with the ability to establish organizational architectural patterns - Proven ability to independently lead complex, multi-team software initiatives and resolve systemic issues that impact the entire organization - Exceptional problem-solving skills with the ability to debug complex issues across multiple systems and establish preventive measures - Extensive experience with testing methodologies, including unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end tests, with the ability to establish organizational testing standards - Deep expertise with cloud infrastructure (GCP, AWS, Azure) and containerization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes), with strategic understanding of hybrid and multi-cloud architectures Leadership and Organizational Influence - Demonstrated leadership within executive and strategic discussions, recognized as the ultimate authority on challenging technical issues across the organization - Proven ability to influence organizational practices, strategic project direction, and cross-team collaborations at the highest levels - Experience playing a leading role in setting organizational processes and standards, shaping long-term software strategies and technical vision - Exceptional mentorship capabilities with experience actively mentoring engineers across all levels (junior, intermediate, and senior) - Ability to foster a culture of knowledge sharing and continuous improvement across the entire organization - Track record of consistently owning strategic initiative outcomes and providing guidance that influences organizational technical direction Problem-Solving and Quality - Exhibits exceptional problem-solving abilities and consistently drives organizational quality improvements - Obsession with performant, defect-free, maintainable code and systems, establishing organizational quality standards - Ability to identify root causes and implement long-term strategic solutions that prevent future issues, not just quick fixes - Establishes and maintains high standards for quality across the organization, ensuring robust testing and efficient design solutions - Proactive strategic mindset with the ability to foresee organizational problems before they occur and establish preventive measures Communication and Strategic Collaboration - Exceptional communication skills to collaborate effectively with team members, stakeholders, cross-functional teams, and executive leadership - Ability to explain complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences, including executive leadership, influencing strategic decisions - Experience working in a collaborative environment, leading organizational discussions and driving strategic decisions - Ability to balance multiple strategic priorities and work effectively in a fast-paced environment while maintaining focus on long-term objectives - Willingness and ability to travel occasionally within the Middle East region for strategic on-site work and vendor coordination Learning and Growth - Drives organizational learning and experimentation, pioneering adoption of cutting-edge technologies and establishing organizational technical direction - Stays current with industry trends, best practices, and emerging technologies, sharing insights that influence organizational strategy - Actively seeks out new knowledge and applies innovative solutions to problems that impact the entire organization - Willingness to learn and adapt to new technologies, tools, and methodologies, establishing organizational best practices for technology adoption Domain Knowledge (Preferred) - Experience working with financial systems, APIs, or fintech applications - Understanding of financial transaction processing, accounting principles, or regulatory compliance - Familiarity with domain-driven design and event-driven design patterns - Experience with distributed systems, microservices, and service-oriented architectures Who You Might Be (Nice-To-Haves) - Experience coordinating infrastructure provisioning activities or working with cloud and data center environments in regulated markets - Experience managing vendor relationships for infrastructure services, including cloud providers and data center vendors - Familiarity with infrastructure as code (IaC) tools like Terraform and GitOps practices - Understanding of Kubernetes orchestration, networking concepts, and infrastructure monitoring tools - Experience with infrastructure deployment in regulated environments or data residency requirements (e.g., UAE, Saudi Arabia) - Experience in the financial services or fintech industry - Experience working with Middle East financial markets (UAE, DIFC, Saudi Arabia / Tadawul, CMA) - Experience with regulatory compliance in the region (DFSA, SCA, CMA, ISO 27001, SOC 2) - Experience working with global teams across multiple time zones - Knowledge of emerging technologies and their application to financial services - Experience with observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, distributed tracing) - Contributions to open-source projects or technical communities - Experience with database design and optimization (PostgreSQL, Redis, etc.) - Certifications in cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, Azure) or infrastructure management (Kubernetes, Terraform) - Familiarity with Middle East fintech ecosystem and market dynamics 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. [Recruitment Privacy Policy](https://files.alpaca.markets/disclosures/AlpacaRecruitmentPrivacyPolicy.pdf) ## About Alpaca ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Alpaca provides developer-first APIs and brokerage infrastructure that enable fintechs, institutions, and individual developers to build and scale investing and trading applications across stocks, options, and crypto. - **Entity Type**: Private (backed by $320M in total funding) - **Headquarters**: Silicon Valley, California, USA (globally distributed remote company) - **Founded**: 2015 - **Founders**: Yoshi Yokokawa (CEO) and Hitoshi Harada (CPO) ## Core Business - **Primary industry/industries**: Financial Technology (Fintech), Brokerage Infrastructure, API Services - **Target customers**: B2B (fintechs, global financial institutions, broker-dealers, registered investment advisors) and B2C (algo traders, quant funds, retail investors, developers) - **Mission statement**: "Open financial services to everyone on the planet" — allowing 8+ billion people to access financial markets. ## Products & Services - **Broker API**: Full-stack, end-to-end brokerage infrastructure service that empowers global fintechs and institutions to build customizable investing applications and platforms. Includes clearing, custody, compliance, and regulatory setups. - **Trading API**: Allows programmatic traders, retail investors, hedge funds, and prop firms to develop algorithms that automate trading strategies across stocks, options, and crypto. Features REST/FIX integration, real-time market data, and 1.5ms order processing via OMS v2. - **Tokenization Network**: Enables tokenized equities to trade as one connected market with instant in-kind mint/redeem, deep liquidity, and 24/7 API access. - **High Yield Cash**: Competitive APY on uninvested USD cash with up to $2.5M in FDIC sweep coverage. - **Fully Paid Securities Lending**: Enables clients to lend securities for additional yield. - **24/5 Trading**: Always-on trading with automatic session-aware order routing and real-time overnight data. - **Self-Clearing Operations**: Full self-clearing broker-dealer (member of DTCC, FICC, OCC, Nasdaq Exchange) providing reduced costs for partners. - **Paper Trading & Backtesting**: API sandbox environment and backtesting with historical market data. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed - **Key Metric**: Total Funding of $320 million from top-tier investors - **Notable Investors**: Portage Ventures, Spark Capital, Tribe Capital, Social Leverage, Horizons Ventures, Eldridge, Y Combinator, and angel investors including Joshua S. Levine (former CTO/COO of ETRADE), Nate Rodland (former COO of Robinhood), Patrick O’Shaughnessy, Jacqueline Reses, Asiff Hirjii (former President/COO of Coinbase), Aaron Levie (CEO of Box), and founders of Plaid and Wealthsimple. - **Growth Signals**: - Over 7 million brokerage accounts opened across 40+ countries - 61,000+ monthly active developers (MAD) - 250+ employees in 25 countries - Self-clearing since 2024; member of DTCC, FICC, OCC, and Nasdaq Exchange (2025) - ISO 27001:2022 certified, SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, EU US DPF, CSA Level 1, ICO compliant - Excess SIPC coverage up to $30M in securities and $1M in cash per customer ## Competitive Advantages - **Developer-first approach**: Easy-to-use APIs with SDKs in Python, .NET/C#, Go, Node, and more; 99.99% system uptime as of January 2026. - **Full-stack regulatory infrastructure**: FINRA-registered broker-dealer, self-clearing, SIPC member with excess coverage, and multiple international regulatory licenses (Bahamas, Japan, FinCEN MSB). - **Multi-asset support**: Stocks, ETFs, options, crypto, fixed income, tokenized equities — all via a single API. - **Global reach**: Powers financial institutions across 40+ countries including Australia, Chile, Denmark, France, Mexico, UK, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Turkey, and more. - **Proprietary technology**: Builds its own technology stack rather than relying on legacy vendors (e.g., open-source MarketStore database for financial time-series data). ## Strategic Focus - **Global expansion**: Actively working on new product offerings such as global stocks and index options. - **Deepening regulatory moat**: Continued investment in self-clearing capabilities and international licensing to serve partners worldwide. - **Tokenization & digital assets**: Expanding the Instant Tokenization Network and digital asset offerings for 24/7 liquidity. - **Embedded finance**: Helping fintechs and institutions embed investing features directly into their own platforms. - **Scaling the developer community**: Growing the 61,000+ monthly active developer base through open-source contributions, community platforms, and educational resources. ## Why Work Here - **100% remote-first**: Globally distributed team across 20+ countries and almost every time zone; no central office requirement. - **Global, multicultural team**: "Melting pot of diverse backgrounds" from tech startups to deep financial experience; team members in 25 countries. - **Culture**: Goal-oriented, radical honesty, empathy-driven, and focused on solving hard problems. Described as "ambitiously creative" with a "last 10% of effort" mentality. - **Career growth**: Fast-scaling startup with "limitless opportunities" for those looking to challenge themselves and advance. - **Impact**: Directly shaping the future of finance by disrupting a legacy industry; building infrastructure that enables millions of people to access financial markets. - **Leadership**: Founded by Yoshi Yokokawa (former Lehman Brothers, Endeavor Entrepreneur) and Hitoshi Harada (former Lead Architect at Greenplum/EMC, PostgreSQL contributor); executive team from Robinhood, Strike, TD Securities, TMX Group. - **Notable perks**: Competitive compensation, equity, and the chance to work on open-source projects (e.g., MarketStore). ## Sources 1. [alpaca.markets - About Us](https://alpaca.markets/about-us) 2. [alpaca.markets - Homepage](https://alpaca.markets/) 3. [alpaca.markets - Careers/Hiring](https://alpaca.markets/hiring) 4. [LinkedIn - Alpaca](https://www.linkedin.com/company/alpacamarkets) 5. 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