Senior Software Engineer - Market Data

About the role

This Senior Software Engineer role at Alpaca focuses on the architecture and implementation of market data systems. The position requires designing and building highly scalable, mission-critical solutions, with a strong emphasis on minimizing latency. Candidates will be responsible for backend service implementation, ensuring high software quality, and participating in code reviews.

The successful candidate will influence the overall system architecture and lead projects involving multiple teams. This includes troubleshooting incidents and bugs, and potentially being on-call for time-sensitive engineering tasks. The work directly contributes to Alpaca's infrastructure, which supports millions of brokerage accounts globally.

Alpaca is a US-headquartered broker-dealer providing infrastructure for various financial instruments across 40 countries. The company has secured significant funding and serves a diverse range of financial institutions. The team is global and committed to open-source contributions, aiming to open financial services to a worldwide audience.

The annual salary for this position ranges from $98,000 to $162,000.

Skills that matter here

• Go programming: This is a primary language for critical services, so expertise in Go is highly valued.
• C: Experience with compiled imperative languages like C is required for building high-performance systems.
• Rust programming: Familiarity with Rust, another compiled language, is beneficial for developing robust and efficient solutions.
• GCP cloud: The company primarily uses Google Cloud Platform, so experience with GCP is essential for cloud-native development.
• Kubernetes: Experience with Kubernetes is necessary as it is used for workload orchestration and scheduling, specifically via GKE.
• Low-latency systems: A core focus of this role is optimizing systems for minimal latency, requiring deep understanding of performance engineering.

Who this role suits

• An engineer with at least four years of experience building systems at scale.
• Someone who thrives on optimizing performance, particularly in low-latency environments.
• An individual who enjoys influencing architectural decisions and leading medium-scale projects.
• A professional with a genuine interest in financial markets and their underlying technology.

From the employer

Things You Get To Do:

• Influence the overall architecture of Alpaca’s market data systems
• Design highly scalable, mission-critical systems
• Obsess over latency (every nanosecond counts)
• Implement backend services and lead architecture where scalability and resilience matters
• Maintain good software quality and test coverage
• Participate in code reviews
• Troubleshooting on incidents and reported bugs
• You may be asked to be on-call to assist with engineering projects that are timely in nature

Who You Are (Must-Haves):

• At least 4 years of experience working on systems at scale
• Experience with at least compiled imperative languages (e.g. Go, C, C++, Rust, etc.). Most of our critical services are written in Go
• SQL or relational database skills
• Familiarity with TCP/IP, and UDP networking
• Proficient with Linux/BSD, and shell scripting
• Excited about what we are building at Alpaca
• Proven track record of architecting and leading medium-scale projects involving multiple teams
• Experience with Kubernetes or other workload orchestration and scheduling systems (we primarily use Kubernetes via GKE)
• Experience with major cloud platforms (we primarily use GCP)
• A passion for financial markets

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.