Senior Business Architect - Alpaca

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. Serving hundreds of financial institutions across 40 countries, our institutional-grade APIs power broker-dealers, investment advisors, wealth managers, hedge funds, and crypto exchanges, totaling over 10 million brokerage accounts.

Our global team of 400+ members spans the USA, Canada, Japan, Hungary, Nigeria, Brazil, the UK, and beyond. We are backed by $400 million in funding from top-tier global investors including Portage Ventures, Spark Capital, Tribe Capital, Social Leverage, Horizons Ventures, and Y Combinator.

Your Role

We're seeking a Senior Business Architect (Canada) for ACCC. You will dive deep into brokerage operations across accounts, trading, clearing, settlement, custody, and asset servicing, translating operational knowledge into clear requirements that Product and Engineering can build.

You serve as the bridge between how the Canadian brokerage actually works and the product roadmap, leading structured discovery and translating partner workflows into epics, user stories, acceptance criteria, and edge cases.

What You'll Own

• Operations Scope: Define what ACCC must support across accounts, trading, clearing, settlement, custody, books and records, and asset servicing.
• Partner Firm Handoffs: Outline what partners send, what we send back, and operational responsibilities across accounts, trades, cash, and securities.
• Account & Trade Lifecycle: Map account opening, Canadian settlement through CDS, failed trades, transfers, and corporate actions.
• Platform Gap Analysis: Compare today's Alpaca platform with Canadian brokerage operations requirements to decide what to reuse, change, or build.
• Requirements & Documentation: Write epics, user stories, acceptance criteria, and edge cases, producing process maps, capability matrices, and decision logs.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Interface across Product, Engineering, Ops, and Compliance to translate business needs and escalate open decisions.

Who You Are (Must-Haves)

• 8+ years as a business architect, business analyst, consultant, or in product operations within brokerage, clearing, custody, or capital markets.
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, finance, or equivalent.
• Strong structured analysis skills (flows, entities, states, exceptions, controls).
• Clear writing ability for specs, diagrams, and actionable decisions.
• Strong judgment to differentiate product changes from operating procedures or policy decisions.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience on a carrying, self-clearing, or custody build.
• Canadian dealer, carrying broker, or introducing broker experience.
• Familiarity with CDS or Canadian settlement workflows.
• Experience with registered accounts or Canadian tax requirements (TFSA, RRSP, RESP).
• AI-native workflow experience using tools like Cursor, Claude, or ChatGPT.