Engineer Team Lead, New Markets Singapore

About the role

This role involves leading a team of engineers in Singapore to develop brokerage and platform services for new markets. The Team Lead will be responsible for defining technical architecture, ensuring API quality, and maintaining operational readiness for regional workloads. This includes designing and implementing scalable, mission-critical systems using gRPC microservices, REST APIs, and vendor integrations, while also advancing the core platform for multi-region and multi-currency contexts.

The position requires significant people leadership, including coaching engineers, setting priorities, and supporting career growth. The Team Lead will also collaborate with recruiting for regional hiring and foster knowledge sharing within Alpaca's engineering culture. Operational excellence is another key aspect, involving acting as a senior escalation point for incidents, improving monitoring and alerting, and participating in on-call rotations.

Success in this role means effectively guiding the engineering team, ensuring the delivery of high-quality, scalable brokerage systems, and fostering a strong engineering culture. The Team Lead will also need to collaborate across time zones with global teams and engage with Product, Compliance, and local stakeholders to meet regional requirements and integrate new markets into Alpaca's financial services offerings.

The salary for this position ranges from $128,000 to $212,000 USD annually, in addition to stock options.

Skills that matter here

• Go: This role requires strong backend engineering skills, with Go being a preferred language for developing scalable systems.
• distributed systems: The position involves architecting and delivering scalable, mission-critical brokerage systems that operate across distributed environments.
• gRPC microservices: The Team Lead will be architecting and shipping brokerage systems that utilize gRPC microservices for communication.
• people leadership: A core responsibility is to lead, coach, and develop engineers, setting priorities and supporting their career growth.
• Kubernetes: Experience with Kubernetes is a nice-to-have, indicating familiarity with container orchestration for deployed services.
• GCP: Experience with cloud platforms like GCP is a nice-to-have, suggesting an understanding of cloud-based infrastructure.

Who this role suits

• A candidate with staff-level technical depth who can lead architectural decisions and provide cross-team technical guidance.
• Someone with proven experience in directly leading or mentoring engineers, focusing on their development and team delivery.
• An individual with a background in financial services, fintech, or brokerage, understanding trading lifecycles and regulatory aspects.
• A communicator who can effectively engage with regional and global stakeholders across different time zones.

From the employer

Your Role:

We are hiring a Team Lead in Singapore who brings Staff-level technical depth and people leadership:

• Guide engineers building brokerage and platform services for New Markets in the region.
• Partner with global teams and represent engineering for Singapore stakeholders.
• Responsibility around architecture, APIs, reliability, mentorship, and regional recruitment support.

Things you get to do:

• Technical architecture and delivery: Architect and ship scalable, mission-critical brokerage systems (gRPC microservices, REST/gRPC APIs, vendor integrations).
• Advance the core platform for multi-region, multi-currency, and regulatory context globally.
• Own API quality, performance, and operational readiness for regional workloads.

• Leadership and people: Lead, coach, and develop engineers in Singapore; set clarity on priorities, quality bar, and career growth.
• Partner with recruiting on regional hiring and interviews.
• Facilitate knowledge sharing and engineering culture across Alpaca.

• Operational excellence: Act as a senior escalation for incidents affecting regional stacks; improve monitoring, alerting, and incident response.
• Participate in on-call as appropriate for the team’s coverage model.

• Stakeholder collaboration: Work with Product, Compliance, and local stakeholders on Singapore and regional requirements.
• Collaborate across time zones with US and other regional engineering teams.

What we look for (Must-Haves):

• Strong backend engineering (Go or equivalent) and distributed systems at scale.
• Staff-level impact: architecture ownership, cross-team technical leadership, mentoring.
• People leadership experience: direct or matrix leadership of engineers (1:1s, performance, delivery).
• Financial services / fintech / brokerage exposure: trading lifecycle, settlements, regulatory awareness.
• Excellent communication in English; comfort with regional and global stakeholders.

Who You Might Be (Nice-To-Haves):

• Experience in Singapore or APAC regulatory and market context.
• Microservices, Kubernetes, cloud (GCP/AWS), event-driven design.
• Open-source or strong community presence.

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.