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Alpaca is a US-headquartered global leader in agent-first brokerage infrastructure for stocks, ETFs, options, crypto, fixed income, and 24/5 trading. The company is a licensed financial services provider serving hundreds of financial institutions across 40 countries with institutional-grade APIs, supporting over 10 million brokerage accounts. Alpaca is backed by $400 million in funding from top-tier investors including Portage Ventures, Spark Capital, Tribe Capital, Y Combinator, and others.
As a Senior Software Engineer for New Markets Japan, you will be responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining systems and services that form Alpaca's foundation and empower millions of users trading billions of dollars in assets. You will contribute to regional recruitment initiatives, drive cross-functional team projects, mentor teammates on engineering principles and practices, and foster Alpaca culture in the Japan region. You will participate in operational reliability engineering during regional business hours to ensure 24/7 platform stability.
Key responsibilities include:
- Design highly scalable, mission-critical brokerage systems for the Japan market
- Develop and enhance middle- and back-office systems, including gRPC microservices, REST and gRPC APIs, and third-party vendor integrations specific to Japan (JPX, JSCC, JASDEC, banks, identity verification vendors)
- Work with core teams to enhance the framework to support multiple languages, currencies, and markets, with focus on Japan-specific requirements such as NISA, MyNumber, withholding tax, and JP-GAAP accounting
- Collaborate with tech leads in other regions synchronously and asynchronously to align with global teams
- Coordinate in Japanese with local regulators, vendors, partners, and business stakeholders; translate requirements into technical specifications for the global engineering team
- Troubleshoot incidents and reported bugs to maintain system integrity and performance
- Participate in on-call rotations and assist with engineering projects and production issues during Japan business hours
- Thrive in a global environment, navigating regulatory requirements and building scalable solutions to support Alpaca's expansion in Japan
The ideal candidate is an experienced backend engineer dedicated to delivering seamless, high-quality software solutions with a proven track record of designing and building scalable applications. You should be comfortable challenging conventions, advocating for innovative solutions, and bridging engineering work with Japan-specific regulatory, vendor, and partner requirements. You will have autonomy to architect and implement solutions meeting strategic objectives while actively contributing to goal-setting alongside a collaborative, cross-functional team.
Alpaca's team comprises 400+ globally distributed members spanning the USA, Canada, Japan, Hungary, Nigeria, Brazil, the UK, and beyond. The company values core principles: Stay Curious, Have Empathy, and Be Accountable.
Benefits include competitive salary and stock options, health benefits, a one-time USD $500 new hire home-office setup, and a USD $150 monthly stipend via Brex Card.
REQUIREMENTS (Must-Haves):
- Native or JLPT N1 level fluency in Japanese, with ability to read, write, and communicate professionally with local regulators, vendors, and partners
- Business-level English fluency for collaboration in English-only team meetings, design discussions, code reviews, and written documentation
- Proven experience designing and developing complex financial systems, preferably including double-entry accounting
- Strong understanding of accounting principles, ledger structures, and transaction reconciliation
- Experience building scalable, high-availability financial applications handling multi-currency transactions
- Familiarity with regulatory compliance requirements in financial markets, with preference for Japan experience (FIEA, FSA, JSDA, JIPF, or related frameworks)
- Proficiency in at least one statically typed language (Go, Rust, Java, Kotlin, C#, Scala, or C++), with expertise in designing robust and efficient system architectures
- Experience working with financial APIs, market data integrations, and trade settlement processes
- Strong communication skills to collaborate effectively with global teams, local regulators, vendors, and internal stakeholders, bridging Japanese and English contexts
- Strong computer science fundamentals and proven software engineering architecture experience
- Ability to work independently in a fully remote, globally distributed team, and under pressure in a fast-paced environment
- Strategic thinking and ability to translate technical concepts into business strategies
- Experience with domain-driven design and event-driven design
- Strong problem-solving skills paired with a proactive mindset
- Ability to lead and troubleshoot incidents or bugs with authority during Japan business hours
NICE-TO-HAVES:
- Proficiency in Go, or willingness to ramp up quickly (Go is Alpaca's primary backend language)
- Experience in the Japanese financial services sector (securities firms, banks, brokerages, or fintech)
- Hands-on experience integrating with Japan market infrastructure such as JPX (TSE/OSE), JSCC, JASDEC, or major Japanese banks
- Experience with Japan-specific products such as NISA, iDeCo, tokutei-koza, or MyNumber handling
- Experience working in a startup or fast-growing technology company
- Knowledge of emerging technologies
- Experience or passion for financial markets
- Experience managing vendors and organizational budgeting
- Experience working with global, English-speaking teams across multiple time zones
