Staff Software Engineer - New Markets Japan

About the role

Alpaca, a US-headquartered brokerage infrastructure company, is looking for a Staff Software Engineer for its New Markets Japan team. The role is responsible for designing, implementing and maintaining the systems that power millions of users, contributing to regional recruitment, mentoring teammates and fostering Alpaca's culture in Japan. It is fully remote and requires business-level or fluent Japanese.

Key responsibilities

• Design highly scalable, mission-critical brokerage systems for the Japan market.
• Build and improve middle- and back-office systems, including gRPC and REST APIs and integrations with Japan-specific vendors (JPX, JSCC, JASDEC, banks, identity verification).
• Help transform the core framework to support multiple languages, currencies and markets, with a focus on Japan requirements such as NISA, MyNumber, withholding tax and JP-GAAP accounting.
• Work with tech leads in other regions and coordinate in Japanese with regulators, vendors and partners, turning their needs into technical specs.
• Troubleshoot incidents and bugs, and take part in on-call rotations during Japan business hours.

Required profile

• Native or JLPT N1 level Japanese, and business-level English.
• Proven experience designing complex financial systems, preferably with double-entry accounting.
• Understanding of accounting principles, ledgers and transaction reconciliation, and familiarity with financial market regulations (a preference for Japan experience).
• Experience with financial APIs, market data and trade settlement.
• Comfortable working independently in a fully remote, global team under pressure.

Required skills

• A statically typed language such as Go, Rust, Java, Kotlin, C# or C++.
• Domain-driven design and event-driven design.
• Nice-to-have: Go, experience with JPX, JSCC, JASDEC or NISA/iDeCo, and experience in the Japanese financial services sector.

What we offer

• Competitive salary and stock options.
• Health benefits.
• One-time home-office setup of USD 500 and a monthly stipend of USD 150 via a Brex card.