Who We Are:
Alpaca is a US-headquartered self-clearing broker-dealer and brokerage infrastructure for stocks, ETFs, options, crypto, fixed income, 24/5 trading, and more. Our recent Series D funding round brought our total investment to over $320 million, fueling our ambitious vision.
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 9 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 top-tier global investors, including Portage Ventures, Spark Capital, Tribe Capital, Social Leverage, Horizons Ventures, Unbound, SBI Group, Derayah Financial, Elefund, and Y Combinator.
Our Team Members:
We're a dynamic team of 230+ 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
We are seeking a Director to serve as a key operational leader within our Brokerage Operations organization. This role is designed for a highly strategic operator who can function as a critical strategic partner to senior operations leadership — owning complex operational domains, driving cross-functional initiatives, scaling brokerage infrastructure, and helping shape Alpaca’s expansion into Futures and Prediction Markets.
The ideal candidate brings deep brokerage and clearing operations expertise alongside strong knowledge of Futures and/or Prediction Markets. They are proactive, systems-oriented, operationally rigorous, and comfortable leading across Operations, Engineering, Product, Compliance, Treasury, and Risk in a fast-moving environment.
Things You Get To Do
Lead Brokerage & Market Infrastructure Operations
- Serve as a senior operational leader across Alpaca’s brokerage and clearing ecosystem
- Help oversee and scale operational workflows across equities, options, cash management, transfers, reconciliations, settlements, and operational risk domains
- Build and scale operational workflows supporting Futures and Prediction Markets products
- Design scalable clearing, settlement, reconciliation, collateral, fraud prevention, and lifecycle management processes
- Partner closely with Product and Engineering teams to operationalize new products and trading capabilities
- Evaluate operational risk across new market structures and proactively implement controls and monitoring
- Help shape Alpaca’s long-term operational strategy across brokerage operations and multi-asset clearing infrastructure
Drive Automation, Scale & Operational Excellence
- Identify high-impact automation opportunities across reconciliation, exception management, settlement, margin, and reporting workflows
- Lead initiatives that materially improve operational efficiency, scalability, resiliency, and accuracy
- Reduce manual touchpoints through systems thinking and process engineering
- Establish measurable KPIs and operational performance metrics
- Drive proactive operational readiness rather than reactive firefighting
Operate as a Strategic Cross-Functional Leader
- Act as a strategic bridge across Operations, Engineering, Product, Compliance, Finance, Treasury, and Risk
- Influence roadmap prioritization for operational tooling and platform improvements
- Lead complex cross-functional initiatives involving multiple stakeholders and external vendors
- Operate as a trusted thought partner and escalation point for operational leadership
- Mentor and develop operational leaders and subject matter experts
- Help establish a culture of accountability, urgency, ownership, and operational excellence
Regulatory & Clearing Infrastructure Oversight
- Partner with Compliance and Legal teams to ensure operational adherence to applicable regulatory obligations
- Interface with clearing firms, exchanges, FCMs, market utilities, and industry working groups
- Support operational readiness for audits, examinations, certifications, and regulatory reviews
- Contribute to operational frameworks supporting new market and product launches
- Monitor industry developments and modernization initiatives across clearing and market infrastructure
Incident Management & Operational Resiliency
- Lead high-severity operational issue management and root cause analysis
- Develop preventative controls and resiliency frameworks
- Improve operational transparency, escalation protocols, and incident response procedures
- Establish scalable operational governance and documentation standards
Who You Are
You are the type of operator who can simultaneously lead strategic operational initiatives, dive into the details during critical incidents, improve systems proactively, and influence teams across the organization without relying on hierarchy alone.
You likely come from a brokerage, clearing firm, FCM, exchange, fintech infrastructure company, or institutional trading environment where operational precision, scale, urgency, and risk management matter deeply.
- 8+ years of experience in brokerage operations, clearing operations, futures operations, exchange operations, market infrastructure, or capital markets operations
- Deep expertise in brokerage and clearing operations
- Strong operational knowledge across equities, options, settlements, reconciliations, transfers, margin, operational controls, and customer-impacting workflows
- Deep expertise in Futures and/or Prediction Markets operational workflows
- Strong understanding of trade lifecycle management, clearing, settlement, reconciliation, collateral, margin, and operational controls
- Experience working with clearing firms, FCMs, exchanges, OCC, CME, DTCC, or other financial market infrastructure providers
- Proven ability to independently lead highly cross-functional initiatives in fast-paced environments
- Strong systems thinking and process optimization mindset
- Experience driving operational automation and scalable infrastructure improvements
- Comfortable operating both strategically and tactically depending on business needs
- Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills
- Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities
- Demonstrated leadership through influence, ownership, and execution
- Core Competencies - Alignment with Alpaca’s company tenets:
- Stay Curious
- Have Empathy
- Be Accountable
Who You Are - Strong Plus
- SQL, Python, or data analysis experience
- Power user of AI tools like Cursor, NotebookLM, Chatgpt, Onyx
- Experience supporting Prediction Markets products or event-based trading products
- Experience with self-clearing brokerage infrastructure
- Familiarity with exchange connectivity and post-trade systems
- Experience leading operational modernization initiatives
- Exposure to operational risk management frameworks
- Experience working closely with engineering teams on workflow automation and platform tooling
- FINRA licenses or NFA-related exposure
- Familiarity with API-first brokerage platforms and fintech infrastructure
What Success Looks Like
This role is expected to operate as a force multiplier for Brokerage Operations leadership.
The right candidate will help increase organizational scale, operational maturity, proactive execution, and cross-functional effectiveness across the company.
In your first 6-12 months, you will:
- Establish scalable operational frameworks for Futures and Prediction Markets products
- Identify and deliver meaningful operational efficiency improvements
- Strengthen operational controls, resiliency, and monitoring
- Become a trusted strategic partner across Operations, Engineering, Product, Compliance, and Risk
- Improve operational readiness and reduce reactive issue management
- Help build the foundation for Alpaca’s next generation of clearing infrastructure
Who You’ll Work With
You will work directly alongside senior leadership across Brokerage Operations, Product, Engineering, Treasury, Compliance, and Risk while partnering closely with external clearing firms, exchanges, and market infrastructure providers.
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.
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