About this role
Role Description
We are looking for a Head of Data to lead Alpaca’s ~15-person data department across Platform Engineering, Analytics Engineering, and Data Science. You will own the data strategy, the team’s execution, and the department’s roadmap.
The Data department serves every function at Alpaca:
Powers partner invoicing and revenue attribution Provides the analytical foundation for sales, product, and compliance Operates the data platform that processes hundreds of millions of events daily
You will manage three team leads, balancing operational delivery with strategic bets.
This is a player-coach role. You will set direction for the team while staying close enough to the technical details to:
Make architecture decisions Unblock your leads Represent data’s capabilities to the executive team
Qualifications
8+ years in data engineering or analytics, including 3+ years managing data teams (leads + ICs) Deep experience with modern data stack: dbt, Trino/Presto or equivalent query engines, Apache Iceberg or similar table formats, cloud object storage Hands-on experience with ETL/ELT patterns at scale: CDC (Debezium/Kafka), batch (Airflow/dbt), streaming, and reverse ETL Track record of building self-service analytics capabilities for non-technical stakeholders Experience with financial data: trading, invoicing, revenue attribution, or regulatory reporting in fintech or financial services Proficiency in Python and SQL. Comfortable reading code, reviewing PRs, and making architecture decisions Experience managing distributed/remote teams across multiple time zones Strong stakeholder management: you can translate between executive priorities and engineering execution Experience with GCP (GKE, GCS, BigQuery migration), Kubernetes, Helm, Terraform
Requirements
Lead and develop three sub-teams: Platform Engineering & ETL, Analytics Engineering, and Data Science & Analytics Own the Data Lakehouse architecture: Trino, Iceberg/GCS, Airflow, Airbyte, Redpanda CDC, dbt Drive partner invoicing accuracy and evolution Deliver embedded analytics Support product launches with data change management Accelerate self-service Guide AI/ML enablement Collaborate with Finance, Sales, Product, Compliance, and Customer Success Manage infrastructure costs Operate production systems
Benefits
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