Brokerage Operations Associate I - ACATS

Job Description

Job Description

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 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:

You'll join Alpaca's Brokerage Operations team and own critical ACATS and non-ACATS transfer workflows across our B2B partner ecosystem. As Alpaca expands its self-clearing capabilities, you'll help build and operate the processes, controls, and tooling that support accurate and timely incoming and outgoing account transfers.

We're looking for someone who brings deep operational expertise in account transfers, thrives in a fast-paced and ever-evolving regulatory environment, and is excited to help build out our transfers function as we transition to self-clearing. Working collaboratively with internal and external partners, you'll play a key role in delivering accurate, timely, and compliant transfer processing while shaping the procedures and controls that support business continuity. The team is 100% distributed and remote.

Things You Get To Do:

• Process daily incoming and outgoing ACATS within industry timelines, validating client information, contra accounts, and asset eligibility across the full transfer lifecycle
• Process DTC / FOP (Free of Payment) transfers, ACATS Free Deliveries, Fail Reversals, and nonstandard transfer types (PTR, PTD, RCL, RCR, FRV, MFC, PTF)
• Determine and execute appropriate rejection or exception-handling paths, documenting root cause and corrective action
• Work directly with contra firms, transfer agents, and partner brokers to resolve rejects, reclaims, accelerations, documentation issues, and other transfer exceptions
• Run mass account transfers and conversions, both internal and external
• Partner with engineering to automate daily self-clearing workflows
• Drive continuous operational improvement through root cause analysis, trend analysis, and updates to the control framework
• Serve as the firm's Subject Matter Expert on transfers, acting as a referral point for policy-related queries
• Prepare summary documentation for special projects and participate in cross-functional initiatives as assigned

Who You Are (Must-Haves):

• 2+ years of hands-on ACATS operations experience directly processing incoming and outgoing account transfers
• Hands-on experience using ACATS/industry transfer platforms, with strong knowledge of the ACATS lifecycle, statuses, exceptions, and required processing timelines
• Working knowledge of FINRA Rule 11870 and applicable NSCC/DTCC requirements
• Experience identifying and resolving transfer rejects, documentation discrepancies, asset-eligibility issues, and other transfer exceptions
• Working knowledge of U.S. broker-dealer back-office operations, including DTC settlements, FOP transfers, and Fund/SERV
• Experience communicating directly with contra firms, custodians, transfer agents, or clearing firms to resolve transfer issues
• Strong attention to detail and ability to operate independently under hard daily processing cutoffs
• Ability to document procedures, identify root causes, and contribute to controls and process improvements
• Ability to adapt to an evolving regulatory landscape and contribute to a self-clearing operational build-out, while embodying our tenets: Stay Curious, Have Empathy, Be Accountable
• Possess the SIE and Series 99 (or higher securities license), or achieve a passing result on the Series 99 within the first 180 days of employment

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

• 5+ years of brokerage operations experience, particularly in ACATS, transfers, cashiering, or securities operations
• Series 7 or other additional FINRA registration
• Direct experience processing ACATS through the DTCC portal as a receiving or delivering firm
• Experience supporting a broker-dealer self-clearing conversion or operational build-out
• Experience with mass account transfers/conversions
• Experience with ACATS-Fund/SERV, options, annuities, UITs, or non-ACATS transfer-agent workflows
• Experience supporting API-driven, correspondent, or B2B brokerage models

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.

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