Product Operations Lead

Your Role:

Fix Alpaca’s operational bottlenecks for scale. 

Your mission is to own and break the cycle of operational debt by transforming high-risk bottlenecks into automated, scalable solutions. You will operate as the critical bridge, ensuring Alpaca’s ambitions are balanced against operational reality to secure the foundation for parabolic growth. 

Things You Get To Do

• Own Structural Bottlenecks: Own the product roadmap for Alpaca’s internal workflows and tooling. Drive root cause analysis and execute on the most complex and high-risk operational problems (e.g. AML/KYC workflows, reconciliations, corporate actions, cost basis processing, tax reporting, and security master/reference data management)
• Automation Strategy: Design systems and leverage internal tooling, AI, and workflow orchestration, so existing operations teams can support 100x growth. Eliminate critical failure modes by automating core workflows. 
• Delivery & Measurement: Define clear success metrics and SLAs. Write crisp specifications, map processes, and work cross-functionally to ship high-leverage tooling, iterating based on operational feedback.
• Data-Driven Prioritization: Design and manage the data framework for selecting strategic projects, blending inputs from the Risk, Sales and Support. 
• Enforce Operational Readiness: Collaborate with Sales and Product to establish, manage, and enforce the operational capacity standards, acting as the critical check between ambitions and operational reality.
• Platform Strategy & Sourcing: Drive critical Build vs. Buy evaluations for core platform components, ensuring compliance and optimal platform integrity.

Who You Are (Must-Haves)

• Experience: Proven track record in Product Management or technical operations roles, with a focus on FinTech, Brokerage, or Payments platforms; including leading cross-functional projects and securing resources against competing initiatives.
• Leadership: Exceptional prioritization and judgment. Proven ability to measure product impact against risk and cost, influence senior stakeholders, and successfully defend "not now" decisions with clear, actionable data.
• Automation Obsessed: A deep, demonstrated passion for following and applying workflow automation and AI trends pragmatically to brokerage operations.
• Operational Knowledge: Strong functional knowledge of brokerage or financial operations (settlements, reconciliations, client money, best execution, etc.) and regulatory compliance/risk mitigation.
• Financial Infrastructure Knowledge: Experience working with broker-dealer platforms, clearing firms, or trading infrastructure, with exposure to post-trade operational workflows.
• Technical Fluency: Proficient with data, understanding complex system boundaries, and process mapping skills.

Who You Might Be (Nice-to-Haves)

• Direct experience with tax reporting, cost basis, corporate actions, or security master systems
• Strong familiarity with AI automation