New

Trade Surveillance Analyst 1 — Financial Crimes Department

Remote - North America

Who We Are:

Alpaca is a US-headquartered, global leader in agent-first brokerage infrastructure for stocks, ETFs, options, crypto, fixed income, 24/5 trading, and more.

Amongst our subsidiaries, Alpaca is a licensed financial services company, serving hundreds of financial institutions across 40 countries with our institutional-grade APIs. This includes broker-dealers, investment advisors, wealth managers, hedge funds, and crypto exchanges, totalling over 10 million brokerage accounts.

Our global team is a diverse group of experienced engineers, traders, and brokerage professionals who are working to achieve our mission of opening financial services to everyone on the planet. We're deeply committed to open-source contributions and fostering a vibrant community, continuously enhancing our award-winning, developer-friendly API and the robust infrastructure behind it.

Alpaca is proudly backed backed by $400 million in funding from top-tier global investors including Portage Ventures, Spark Capital, Tribe Capital, Social Leverage, Horizons Ventures, Opera Tech Ventures, SBI Group, Derayah Financial, Unbound, Peak XV, Elefund, and Y Combinator.

Our Team Members:

We're a dynamic team of 400+ globally distributed members who thrive working from our favorite places around the world, with teammates spanning the USA, Canada, Japan, Hungary, Nigeria, Brazil, the UK, and beyond!

We're searching for passionate individuals eager to contribute to Alpaca's rapid growth. If you align with our core values—Stay Curious, Have Empathy, and Be Accountable—and are ready to make a significant impact, we encourage you to apply.

Your Role:

Alpaca is seeking a Trade Surveillance Analyst to join the Financial Crimes Department and support the firm’s market-integrity, financial-crime, and compliance surveillance program. This role will be responsible for monitoring trading activity, reviewing alerts, investigating suspicious or potentially manipulative trading behavior, and escalating matters that may involve market abuse, fraud, insider trading, wash trading, spoofing, layering, front-running, information-barrier concerns, or other suspicious trading patterns.

The analyst will use Surveyor by Trillium and Alpaca’s internal systems to conduct near real-time and post-trade reviews, identify anomalies, document investigative findings, and support internal escalations, regulatory inquiries, and matters that may require suspicious-activity reporting. The role combines strong investigative judgment, trade-surveillance expertise, AML & Fraud awareness, and the ability to operate in a fast-paced, technology-driven trading environment.

Things You Get To Do:

  • Development, review, and test trade-surveillance scenarios, alert logic, escalation procedures, and control documentation
  • Make sure procedures and processes are well documented, and distributed to all stakeholders. Ensuring updates are properly accounted for as needed but no less than once per year
  • Monitor trading activity using Surveyor and Alpaca’s internal systems to identify potential market abuse, suspicious trading, unusual order behavior, and other conduct risks
  • Review and investigate trade-surveillance alerts involving potential spoofing, layering, wash trading, front-running, insider trading, manipulative order activity, information-barrier issues, or other suspicious trading patterns
  • Analyze trading activity in the context of market events, client behavior, account activity, transaction patterns, and relevant internal information to determine whether activity is reasonable, unusual, or suspicious
  • Conduct real-time and post-trade reviews to detect anomalies, assess risk, and determine whether escalation is appropriate
  • Clearly document surveillance reviews, investigative steps, evidence reviewed, rationale, conclusions, and recommended next actions
  • Escalate suspicious or high-risk matters to AML leadership, Compliance, Legal, Risk, and other appropriate internal stakeholders
  • Coordinate with the AML Department on trading-related investigations, including matters that may require suspicious-activity review or SAR consideration
  • Support KYC/AML and transaction-monitoring processes by identifying trading behavior that may indicate financial-crime risk, account misuse, fraud, market manipulation, or other suspicious activity
  • Respond to internal escalations involving trading activity, account behavior, customer activity, or potential violations of firm policy
  • Assist with regulatory inquiries, audit requests, internal reviews, and other examinations related to trade surveillance, AML, and market-integrity controls
  • Partner with Compliance, Legal, Risk, Technology, Operations, and business stakeholders to strengthen Alpaca’s surveillance framework and improve investigation workflows
  • Identify emerging surveillance risks, suspicious-trading typologies, control gaps, and opportunities to improve the quality and effectiveness of the trade-surveillance program
  • Prepare clear summaries, metrics, and management reporting related to trade-surveillance activity, alert trends, escalations, and investigation outcomes
  • Maintain strong knowledge of relevant market-abuse risks, AML red flags, trading behaviors, and regulatory expectations applicable to Alpaca’s business

Who You Are (Must-Haves):

  • 5+ years of experience in Fintech trade surveillance, AML investigations, transaction monitoring, financial-crime compliance, brokerage compliance, market surveillance, risk, investigations, or a related control function
  • Experience working at a broker-dealer, fintech, trading platform, exchange, introducing broker, clearing firm, market maker, proprietary trading firm, crypto trading or other regulated financial institution
  • Strong understanding of trading activity, order behavior, market structure, customer activity, and potential indicators of market manipulation or suspicious activity
  • Familiarity with market-abuse typologies, including spoofing, layering, wash trading, front-running, insider trading, unusual price or volume activity, and manipulative order behavior
  • Ability to review trading data, identify behavioral patterns, investigate exceptions, and form well-supported conclusions
  • Experience documenting investigations in a clear, concise, and audit-ready manner
  • Strong analytical skills, sound judgment, attention to detail, and ability to prioritize multiple reviews or investigations
  • High integrity, discretion, and ability to handle confidential information appropriately
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex trading activity to AML, Compliance, Legal, Risk, Technology, and business stakeholders
  • Ability to work independently while collaborating across teams in a fast-paced environment
  • FINRA Series 7 license 

Who You Might Be (Nice-to-Haves):

  • Experience using Surveyor by Trillium for trade surveillance, alert review, investigation, or escalation workflows
  • FINRA Series 24
 

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.

Recruitment Privacy Policy

Create a Job Alert

Interested in building your career at Alpaca ? Get future opportunities sent straight to your email.

Apply for this job

*

indicates a required field

Resume/CV*

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Cover Letter

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Select...
Select...
Select...
Select...
Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Alpaca ’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

Select...
Select...
Race & Ethnicity Definitions

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability

Form CC-305
Page 1 of 1
OMB Control Number 1250-0005
Expires 04/30/2026

Why are you being asked to complete this form?

We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress towards this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.

Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.

How do you know if you have a disability?

A disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more of your “major life activities.” If you have or have ever had such a condition, you are a person with a disability. Disabilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
  • Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
  • Blind or low vision
  • Cancer (past or present)
  • Cardiovascular or heart disease
  • Celiac disease
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
  • Diabetes
  • Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
  • Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
  • Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
  • Intellectual or developmental disability
  • Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
  • Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
  • Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
  • Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
  • Neurodivergence, for example, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
  • Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
  • Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
  • Short stature (dwarfism)
  • Traumatic brain injury
Select...

PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. This survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.