Operations Reliability Engineer - Automations

About the role

This role focuses on integrating directly with brokerage operations to identify and eliminate manual tasks through automation. The engineer will observe, document, and analyze existing processes to develop scalable software solutions. Success is measured by the real-world impact of these fixes on operational efficiency and reliability, transforming recurring manual work into system defects that require durable, auditable software solutions.

The position involves a full lifecycle approach to system ownership, from design and deployment to monitoring and on-call support. This includes building production automations and user interfaces, partnering with front-end engineers to productize tools, and executing operational procedures to uncover pain points. The engineer will also instrument and report on metrics such as mean time to change, manual steps removed, and queue sizes, iterating based on measured impact.

Collaboration is key, as the engineer will work with leadership, compliance, and security teams to ensure automations are auditable, secure, and have clear runbooks. The systems built must prioritize auditability, traceability, and data lineage to meet regulatory requirements. The ideal candidate has a high ownership mindset, focusing on structural fixes rather than temporary patches, and a strong business sense regarding operations.

The salary range for this position is between $105,000 and $175,000 USD.

Skills that matter here

• Golang: Deep, hands-on expertise in Golang is required, including concurrency models, memory management, and standard library knowledge, for building robust automation systems.
• Typescript: Experience with TypeScript, alongside React, is necessary for building user-facing features and productizing operational tooling.
• React: Proven ability to build user-facing features end-to-end with React is essential for developing intuitive operational UIs.
• SQL: Proficiency with SQL and relational databases, specifically PostgreSQL, is required for managing and querying data within the automated systems.
• Automation: The core of this role involves designing, building, and deploying production automations to eliminate manual steps in brokerage operations.
• Operations Reliability: The role aims to enhance brokerage operations by systematically eliminating manual work and improving the overall reliability of financial services through software.

Who this role suits

• A software engineer with at least five years of experience who is driven to eliminate manual processes through code.
• Someone who can analyze human workflows as systems and translate those into scalable software solutions.
• A candidate with a strong sense of ownership who prioritizes durable, structural fixes over quick, tactical solutions.
• An individual who excels at cross-functional collaboration and can communicate complex technical concepts clearly to various stakeholders.

From the employer

Your Role

As an Operations Reliability Engineer, you will embed directly within brokerage operations functions to systematically eliminate manual work and replace it with durable, auditable software systems. You start by immersing yourself in operational workflows: observing, documenting, and deeply understanding processes end-to-end before designing solutions. Every recurring manual process is treated as a system defect, and every fix you ship is measured by its real-world impact on efficiency and reliability.

Things You Get To Do

• Design, build, test, deploy, and monitor production automations and UIs that remove manual steps and reduce operation time.
• Partner with frontend engineers to productize ops tooling so global teams can run functions with predictable staffing.
• Execute operational procedures to surface painful manual processes prior to automation.
• Instrument and report baseline and outcome metrics (MTTC, manual-steps removed, queue sizes, ops satisfaction) and iterate based on measured impact.
• Produce Platform Opportunity Briefs / RFCs for higher-level platform tooling and automations.
• Collaborate with licensed BD leadership, Compliance, and Security to build auditable, safe automations with role-based access and clear runbooks.
• Own the full lifecycle of the systems you build, including automated deployment (CI/CD with tools like ArgoCD and Terraform), proactive monitoring, On-call support rotations and incident response, following a "you build it, you run it" philosophy.
• Build systems with auditability, traceability, and data lineage as a first-class concern to ensure transparency for our auditors and regulators.

Who You Are (must-haves)

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a proven track record of shipping and operating complex, large-scale systems in production.
• Strong business sense and understanding of operations.
• Deep, hands-on expertise in Golang, including a strong command of its concurrency models (goroutines, channels), memory management, and standard library.
• Proven track record of building user-facing features end-to-end with Typescript/React.
• Proficient with SQL and relational databases, preferably PostgreSQL.
• Demonstrated ability to reason about human workflows as systems, not just software services.
• Experience with observability, tracing, continuous profiling.
• Exceptional analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to deconstruct complex requirements into clear technical components and excellent communication skills for working in a cross-functional environment.
• High ownership mindset with bias toward durable, structural fixes over tactical patches.

Who You Might Be (nice-to-haves)

• Knowledge of service oriented architectures.
• Experience with major cloud platforms (we primarily use GCP).
• Financial market (exchange, broker-dealers, clearing, etc.) knowledge.
• Experience with Docker and Kubernetes.
• A passion for financial markets or the desire to learn.
• Knowledge of Agile/Scrum methodologies.
• Demonstrable experience in designing, building, and reasoning about distributed systems, including a strong understanding of microservices architecture and API design patterns (e.g., REST, gRPC).
• Experience with capacity planning and benchmarking.

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.