Trade Surveillance Analyst — Financial Crimes Department Remote - North America

Trade Surveillance Analyst 1 — Financial Crimes Department

Remote - North America

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 that serves hundreds of financial institutions across 40 countries with 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 working to achieve our mission of opening financial services to everyone on the planet. We’re deeply committed to open‑source contributions, fostering a vibrant community, and continuously enhancing our award‑winning, developer‑friendly API and the robust infrastructure behind it.

Your Role: Alpaca is seeking a Trade Surveillance Analyst to join the Financial Crimes Department and support the firm’s market‑integrity, financial‑crime, and compliance surveillance program. This role will monitor trading activity, review alerts, investigate suspicious or potentially manipulative trading behavior, and elevate matters that may involve market abuse, fraud, insider trading, wash trading, spoofing, layering, front‑running, information‑barrier concerns, or other suspicious trading patterns.

The analyst will use Surveyor by Trillium and Alpaca’s internal systems to conduct near‑real‑time and post‑trade reviews, identify anomalies, document investigative findings, and support internal escalations, regulatory inquiries, and matters that may require suspicious‑activity reporting. The role combines strong investigative judgment, trade‑surveillance expertise, AML & Fraud awareness, and the ability to operate in a fast‑paced, technology‑driven trading environment.

• Develop, review, and test trade‑surveillance scenarios, alert logic, escalation procedures, and control documentation.
• Ensure procedures and processes are well documented and distributed to all stakeholders, with updates reviewed at least annually.
• Monitor trading activity using Surveyor and Alpaca’s internal systems to identify potential market abuse, suspicious trading, and unusual order behavior.
• Investigate trade‑surveillance alerts involving spoofing, layering, wash trading, front‑running, insider trading, manipulative order activity, information‑barrier issues, or other suspicious patterns.
• Analyze trading activity in the context of market events, client behavior, account activity, transaction patterns, and relevant internal information.
• Conduct real‑time and post‑trade reviews to detect anomalies, assess risk, and determine appropriate escalation.
• Document surveillance reviews, investigative steps, evidence reviewed, rationale, conclusions, and recommended next actions.
• Escalate suspicious or high‑risk matters to AML leadership, Compliance, Legal, Risk, and other stakeholders.
• Coordinate with the AML Department on trading‑related investigations, including SAR consideration.
• Support KYC/AML and transaction‑monitoring processes by identifying trading behavior that may indicate financial‑crime risk, account misuse, fraud, market manipulation, or other suspicious activity.
• Respond to internal escalations involving trading activity, account behavior, customer activity, or potential violations of firm policy.
• Assist with regulatory inquiries, audit requests, internal reviews, and examinations related to trade surveillance, AML, and market‑integrity controls.
• Partner with Compliance, Legal, Risk, Technology, Operations, and business stakeholders to strengthen Alpaca’s surveillance framework.
• Identify emerging surveillance risks, suspicious‑trading typologies, control gaps, and improvement opportunities.
• Prepare clear summaries, metrics, and management reporting on trade‑surveillance activity, alert trends, escalations, and investigation outcomes.
• Maintain knowledge of relevant market‑abuse risks, AML red flags, trading behaviors, and regulatory expectations applicable to Alpaca’s…