Senior Software Engineer

Summary

Join Alpaca, a leading brokerage infrastructure technology company, as a Senior Backend Software Engineer on our Payments team. You will play a crucial role in architecting, building, and scaling mission-critical financial systems processing billions of dollars daily. This involves designing robust payment processing systems, developing secure APIs, implementing financial controls, and ensuring regulatory compliance. You will leverage your expertise in Go, distributed systems, and financial accounting principles. The role also includes mentoring junior engineers and contributing to the payments infrastructure roadmap. Alpaca offers a competitive salary, stock options, and comprehensive benefits, including health insurance and a generous home-office setup.

Requirements

• 5+ years of backend engineering experience with at least 3 years working with distributed systems at scale
• Strong expertise in Go, including production experience building and maintaining Go microservices
• Deep understanding of financial transactions, payment processing systems, and transaction safety
• Experience with ACH and SWIFT payment networks and their technical requirements
• Strong knowledge of financial accounting principles including: Double-entry accounting with debits and credits, Trial balance reconciliation, General ledger management, Financial reporting and statement generation, Transaction matching and exception handling
• Experience with two-phase commit protocols or similar transaction safety mechanisms
• Experience designing and implementing gRPC services and API gateways
• Proven experience with relational databases (preferably PostgreSQL) for financial record-keeping
• Experience working with distributed systems, eventual consistency, and event sourcing
• Strong system design skills with the ability to make architectural decisions and trade-offs
• Excellent problem-solving skills with a focus on reliability, security, and auditability

Responsibilities

• Design and implement robust, scalable payment processing systems that support ACH and SWIFT payment rails, with architecture capable of expanding to additional payment networks across multiple jurisdictions
• Architected and maintained financial ledger systems that enforced proper accounting principles, including double-entry bookkeeping, balance sheet integrity, and transaction immutability
• Develop two-phase transfer mechanisms that ensure atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability (ACID) in financial transactions
• Create automated reconciliation systems for transaction verification, account balancing, and error detection
• Implement financial controls, including segregation of duties, approvals workflow, and audit trails
• Build and enhance settlement systems that maintain perfect financial record-keeping with complete audit history
• Design and implement secure, auditable APIs for internal and external payment services
• Contribute to technical decision-making for the payments infrastructure roadmap
• Mentor junior engineers and participate in code reviews to maintain high engineering standards

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with international payment processing systems and multi-currency infrastructure
• Knowledge of ISO20022 financial messaging standards and implementation
• Experience with banking APIs and integration with core banking systems
• Familiarity with financial regulations related to money movement, including AML/KYC requirements
• Understanding of regulatory frameworks for cross-border transactions
• Experience building financial systems that support multiple jurisdictions
• Experience mentoring engineers and providing technical leadership
• Prior experience in fintech, brokerage, or trading systems
• Experience with observability tools for distributed systems monitoring
• Knowledge of security best practices for financial systems

Benefits

• Competitive Salary & Stock Options
• Benefits: Health benefits start on day 1. In the US this includes Medical, Dental, Vision. In Canada, this includes supplemental health care. In Japan, you are offered local benefits. Internationally, this includes a stipend value to offset medical costs
• New Hire Home-Office Setup: One-time USD $500
• Monthly Stipend: USD $150 per month via a Brex Card