Settlements Associate

About this role

<div class="content-intro"><p><strong>Who We Are:</strong></p> <p>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 <a href="https://alpaca.markets/blog/alpaca-raises-150-million-at-a-1-15b-valuation-to-build-the-global-standard-for-brokerage-infrastructure/">recent Series D funding round</a> brought our total investment to over $320 million, fueling our ambitious vision.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>Our global team is a diverse group of experienced engineers, traders, and brokerage professionals who are working to achieve our mission of <strong>opening financial services to everyone on the planet</strong>. 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.</p> <p>Alpaca is proudly backed by top-tier global investors, including Portage Ventures, Spark Capital, Tribe Capital, Social Leverage, Horizons Ventures, Unbound, SBI Group, Derayah Financial, Elefund, and Y Combinator.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Our Team Members:</strong></p> <p>We're a dynamic team of 380+ 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!<br><br>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.</p></div><div class="ak-renderer-extension " data-layout="default"> <div class="ak-renderer-extension-overflow-container"> <div class="ak-renderer-wrapper is-undefined css-1jke4yk"> <div class="css-jamgs6"> <div class="ak-renderer-document"> <p data-renderer-start-pos="1"><strong>Your Role:</strong></p> <p data-renderer-start-pos="1"> Global Equity Settlement</p> <ul> <li>Own the end-to-end global equity settlement process, partnering with our custodian, counterparties, and internal stakeholders to ensure timely and accurate settlement across multiple international markets.</li> <li>Ensure transactions are accurately recorded across internal and external systems to facilitate successful settlement.</li> <li>Monitor daily settlement activity and proactively identify transactions at risk of failing.</li> <li>Investigate and resolve settlement exceptions, trade discrepancies, and failing transactions.</li> <li>Review buy-ins, settlement penalties, and aged fails while coordinating remediation efforts with counterparties and our custodian.</li> <li>Monitor trade matching through SWIFT and settlement platforms, ensuring counterparties affirm and match trades within required market deadlines.</li> </ul> <div>Trade Exception Management</div> <ul> <li>Investigate and resolve trade mismatches, including: <ul> <li>Settlement instruction discrepancies</li> <li>Quantity and price differences</li> <li>Allocation issues</li> <li>Counterparty booking errors</li> <li>FX and market-specific settlement exceptions</li> </ul> </li> <li>Partner closely with trading, finance, compliance, counterparties, and custodians to drive timely resolution of settlement issues.</li> <li>Escalate complex settlement discrepancies and operational risks to the Director of Brokerage Operations when appropriate.</li> </ul> <div>Cash & Position Reconciliations</div> <ul> <li>Perform daily reconciliations of securities positions and cash balances across multiple global markets and currencies.</li> <li>Investigate and resolve cash and stock reconciliation breaks between internal ledgers and external custodians.</li> <li>Produce reconciliation reports identifying money differences, position discrepancies, and operational exceptions.</li> <li>Ensure all reconciliation breaks are researched, documented, and resolved within established service levels.</li> </ul> <div>Operational Risk & Regulatory Controls</div> <ul> <li>Ensure operational processes comply with applicable SEC, FINRA, and global market regulations.</li> <li>Support compliance with SEC Rule 15c3-3 by helping maintain proper possession and control of customer securities.</li> <li>Identify operational risks and escalate issues that may impact clients, settlement, or regulatory obligations.</li> <li>Maintain complete and organized operational records supporting audits, examinations, and regulatory reviews.</li> <li>Assist the Director of Brokerage Operations with Internal Audit requests, regulatory examinations, and remediation efforts.</li> </ul> <div>Reporting & Process Improvement</div> <ul> <li>Produce timely, accurate, and meaningful operational reporting on settlement activity, aged fails, reconciliation breaks, and operational…