Staff Software Engineer, New Markets Middle East

Alpaca is a US-headquartered self-clearing broker-dealer and brokerage infrastructure company. They are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to architect and establish foundational software systems for Alpaca's financial infrastructure in the Middle East, ensuring reliability, scalability, and compliance while leading complex software initiatives.

Responsibilities:

• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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

Requirements:

• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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