We’re looking for engineers with business-level Japanese fluency and strong skills in Java, Go, and modern infrastructure technologies such as Kubernetes and cloud platforms (AWS or GCP). Domain knowledge in the financial industry and experience working in Japan are a strong plus. As part of Alpaca’s global engineering team, you’ll help build and scale the systems that power our brokerage infrastructure and empower millions of users to trade billions of dollars in assets across the globe.
One of our key initiatives in Japan is building a modern, scalable ledger system tailored to local broker-dealer needs. It will serve as the source of truth for all account activity, replacing outdated legacy systems still common in Japan. Our next product will support NISA, API-based trading, and global equities.
In this role, you’ll collaborate closely with global and cross-functional teams while owning the design and delivery of critical systems. You’ll have the autonomy to propose and implement solutions, continuously improve architecture, and help shape the technical direction of our Japan platform and beyond.
Responsibilities
- Design and build backend systems with a focus on reliability, scalability, and maintainability.
- Lead or contribute to mission-critical feature development in collaboration with product and broker-dealer finance and operations teams.
- Drive continuous system improvements and proactively identify areas of risk or inefficiency.
- Participate in global engineering initiatives and maintain alignment with Alpaca’s technical standards.
Requirements
- Candidates must be based in Japan to be able to handle customers’ personal information. While Alpaca can provide visa sponsorship, this is reserved for exceptional candidates with highly specialized skills and experience.
- Full proficiency in Japanese
- Must be able to read and interpret complex regulatory documents (e.g., the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, the Act on the Protection of Personal Information, cybersecurity guidelines from the Financial Services Agency and Japan Securities Dealers Association).
- Must be able to draft and finalize formal reports, incident filings, and regulatory correspondence in professional Japanese.
- The ability to communicate with internal stakeholders and legal counsel in Japanese is essential.
- Business-level proficiency in English:
- Comfortable working in English with global teams, primarily via written communication (e.g., Slack, documentation).
- Strong understanding of object-oriented design, system architecture, and data modeling.
- Experience developing in Go or Java.
- Ability to write clean, performant, and reliable code with a strong testing mindset.
- Proactive and collaborative attitude with the ability to work independently or with a team.
- Experience with debugging and optimizing backend systems.
- Familiarity with protobuf, gRPC, cloud platforms (GCP or AWS), and PostgreSQL or other relational databases.
Nice to haves
While not specifically required, tell us if you have any of the following.
- Experience in the financial services or accounting especially in Japan
- Experience with Docker and Kubernetes
- Experience with distributed systems/databases
- Experience with event-driven systems
- Experience working remotely
- Experience working at a startup
Compensation
¥14,000,000 ~ ¥21,000,000 annually.
