Senior Software Engineer - Clearing

As a Senior Software Engineer - Clearing at Alpaca, your key responsibilities include building and maintaining the clearing and settlements platform, contributing to the core system structure, and collaborating with various teams to enhance system interactions. You will also be tasked with implementing reliable backend services, addressing technical challenges, and participating in both architectural decision-making and code reviews.

To apply for the Senior Software Engineer - Clearing role at Alpaca, candidates should have at least 3 years of experience working on large-scale systems. This includes proven skills in building and maintaining microservices, strong coding abilities (preferably in Go), and an understanding of cloud architectures, especially with Google Cloud Platform. Additionally, familiarity with containerization practices such as Kubernetes and experience with relational databases like PostgreSQL are highly desirable.

The Senior Software Engineer - Clearing role directly contributes to Alpaca's mission by developing the infrastructure that enables efficient trading for millions of users. By building a modern clearing and settlement platform, you will help facilitate smoother transactions and enhance the overall reliability of Alpaca’s financial services, ultimately supporting the mission of making such services accessible to everyone.

Candidates for the Senior Software Engineer - Clearing role at Alpaca should be well-versed in backend technologies, particularly microservices, cloud-based architectures, and orchestration technologies like Kubernetes. Experience with messaging queues, relational databases (preferably PostgreSQL), and event-driven design patterns will also be beneficial in this role, alongside proficiency in Go for coding.

Alpaca promotes a work culture that emphasizes empathy, accountability, and curiosity. As a Senior Software Engineer - Clearing, you will be part of a globally distributed team that values collaboration and contributions to open-source projects. The company encourages autonomy and values innovative ideas, making it an exciting environment for engineers looking to make a meaningful impact.

When addressing your experience with microservices, it’s essential to talk about specific projects you've worked on, the challenges you faced, and how you overcame them. Highlight your understanding of service orchestration, inter-service communication, and how your microservices architecture improved system reliability and scalability.

In your response, discuss systematic troubleshooting methods such as logging, monitoring, and using performance metrics. Share specific examples where you effectively diagnosed and resolved issues, focusing on your solution-oriented approach and any tools you utilized in the process.

Explain your approach to writing clean, maintainable code by emphasizing principles like DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) and KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Discuss your testing strategies, including unit tests and integration tests, and any frameworks or tools you prefer for ensuring code quality.

Describe specific instances where you utilized Google Cloud Platform in your development work. Mention services such as Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Functions, or Cloud Storage, and articulate how they enhanced your project’s performance and scalability.

Share examples of how you successfully collaborated with product management, design, or QA teams, focusing on techniques you used to facilitate communication and align on project goals. Highlight how you ensure that technical constraints are communicated effectively to non-technical stakeholders.

Discuss a specific project highlighting your leadership role, how you identified key tasks, coordinated with team members, and managed any technical challenges. Emphasize the end result of the project and the impact it had on the organization.

Describe your continuous learning strategies, such as following industry news, attending workshops, contributing to open-source projects, or taking online courses. Share how you applied what you learned in your previous roles.

Explain your process for making architectural decisions, discussing factors such as scalability, reliability, and performance. Provide examples of how you collaborated with others to determine the best architectural approaches and what data or criteria guided your decisions.

Share your experience working in Agile teams, describing specific frameworks you’ve used (like Scrum or Kanban) and how you adapted to changing requirements. Highlight your participation in ceremonies like stand-ups, retrospectives, and planning sessions.

Articulate your alignment with Alpaca's mission and values, such as your enthusiasm for open financial services and innovation in technology. Discuss what excites you about the company's projects and culture, making your passion evident.