Team Lead Engineer - Crypto

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 is a diverse group of 400+ experienced engineers, traders, and brokerage professionals working to open financial services to everyone on the planet. Alpaca is proudly backed by $400 million in funding from top-tier global investors including Portage Ventures, Spark Capital, Tribe Capital, Social Leverage, and Y Combinator.

Your Role

We are searching for a Team Lead Engineer - Crypto to lead all crypto-related engineering, including our spot and derivatives exchanges licensed in the US and Bahamas.

In this role, you will architect, spec, and build the perpetual futures exchange—including high-performance matching engines, collateral/liquidation/risk engines, public APIs, KYC/AML, regulatory reporting, settlement clearing, custody, banking, order management, accounting, analytics, and compliance integrations.

This is a blank canvas opportunity to design a state-of-the-art crypto exchange backed by our renowned securities brokerage infrastructure.

Things You Get To Do

• Design highly scalable, mission-critical crypto spot and derivatives exchange trading millions of dollars from day one
• Implement backend services and web applications
• Maintain good software quality and test coverage
• Participate in code reviews
• Troubleshoot incidents and reported bugs
• Assist with time-sensitive engineering projects on-call when required

Who You Are (Must-Haves)

• Experience building a CLOB exchange, HFT, market-making, high-performance matching engines, margin/liquidation engines, or other high-throughput & low-latency, regulated, fault-tolerant financial systems
• Experience building crypto systems
• BSc/MSc or equivalent experience in Computer Science or a related field
• Minimum 4 years of experience in backend software development
• Experience with at least one modern programming language (GoLang, Python, C/C++, NodeJS, Java, etc.). Our platform is based in Golang.
• SQL or relational database skills
• Hands-on knowledge with Bash, Linux, & Docker (Kubernetes experience is a plus)
• Excited about what we are building at Alpaca

Who You Might Be (Nice-to-Haves)

• Experience with Kubernetes, CKA, or CKAD certification
• DevOps mindset
• Experience with NoSQL and CI/CD pipelines
• Good understanding of the financial markets
• Experience with major cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure)
• Knowledge of Agile/Scrum methodologies, microservice architectures, and clean code principles

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