Counsel, Commercial

Alpaca is a US-headquartered self-clearing broker-dealer and brokerage infrastructure for stocks, ETFs, options, crypto, fixed income, 24/5 trading, and more. Our recent Series D funding round brought our total investment to over $320 million, fueling our ambitious vision.

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 9 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.

Our Team Members

We're a dynamic team of 230+ 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

Reporting to the Vice President, the Commercial Counsel will have exceptional negotiating and drafting experience, product support, and fintech services industry experience. You will need to be able to combine business acumen and creativity to negotiate terms to help launch key business initiatives. You will play an immediate and direct role in complex commercial transactional work supporting our sales, technology, product, partnerships, and enterprise teams.

Things You Get To Do

Commercial & Transactional Leadership

• Draft, review, and negotiate complex financial and commercial agreements, including
  • Clearing agreements
  • Crypto and digital asset services agreements
  • Securities lending and margin documentation
  • B2B API, SaaS, and embedded brokerage partnerships
  • Derivatives and futures documentation
  • Vendor and event contracts
• Structure novel partnership arrangements that support Alpaca’s API-first brokerage model.
• Develop scalable contracting frameworks, templates, and playbooks to support global expansion.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Work closely with Sales, Compliance, Operations, Finance, InfoSec, and other stakeholders to ensure commercial arrangements align with regulatory and operational requirements.

Strategic Impact

• Challenge assumptions and help design creative legal structures that scale financial services infrastructure.
• Bring practical, business-oriented solutions to complex cross-border regulatory issues.
• Contribute to the evolution of Alpaca’s global legal strategy as we expand across North America, Europe, MENA, APAC, and LATAM.

Who You Are (Must-Haves)

• Licensed attorney with 5-8+ years of experience working at:
  • A financial services institution (e.g., bank, broker-dealer, asset manager, FCM, payments firm, crypto exchange), or
  • A law firm supporting such clients.
• Strong history of commercial and transactional legal work in financial services.
• Experience reviewing and negotiating complex financial agreements (clearing, prime brokerage, crypto, derivatives, or similar).
• Familiarity with U.S. regulatory regimes applicable to securities, crypto, and/or derivatives (SEC/FINRA, CFTC/NFA).
• Excellent judgment, analytical rigor, and clear communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to own projects from concept to execution.
• Practical, solution-oriented mindset with strong business judgment.
• Comfort working with cross-functional, globally distributed teams.
• Intellectual curiosity and interest in fintech, digital assets and blockchain technology.

How We Take Care of You

• Competitive Salary & Stock Options
• 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.