Senior Sales Engineer

About the role

Alpaca is seeking a Senior Sales Engineer to serve as the primary technical point of contact for enterprise clients in Japan and the broader APAC region. This role requires bridging technical and business discussions, acting as a customer-facing expert with deep API knowledge and strong communication skills in both Japanese and English.

Key facts

What you'll do

Provide technical guidance and manage relationships for current enterprise clients in Japan, acting as a trusted technical advisor throughout their partnership.

Collaborate with Sales and Solutions teams on pre-sales technical discussions, designing solutions, and consulting on API usage, presenting product and technical use cases to potential clients.

Guide new enterprise clients through the process of integrating, implementing, and onboarding with our APIs.

Represent the voice of Japanese customers by working with Product and Engineering teams to enhance localized experiences, translating complex business and technical needs from Japanese into clear specifications for the global engineering team.

Act as the subject matter expert on our platform, capable of explaining all aspects to various stakeholders.

Work with local compliance and operations teams to understand regional product requirements, such as JFSA rules, NISA, and local post-trade practices for Japanese and US securities.

Manage the entire technical sales engagement, from initial discovery calls and solution validation to responding to RFPs and security questionnaires, and lead demo strategy and execution.

Develop sales support materials and documentation for new features and products, including Japanese-language collateral.

Coordinate with local regulators, vendors, and partners in Japanese, and relay their requirements to the global product and engineering teams.

Help clients successfully adopt Alpaca's platform while maintaining high standards of technical and customer support.

Travel within Japan and the APAC region as needed.

Stay informed about internal product development timelines and collaborate with the product team to test and roll out new features to partners.

Requirements

A minimum of 5 years of experience supporting enterprise or B2B customers in a technical sales engineering or solutions engineering capacity, ideally within API or SaaS-focused companies.

A strong understanding of REST APIs, SDKs, and software integration workflows, with hands-on experience using APIs, WebSockets, Postman, Grafana, and JSON.

Native or business-level fluency in Japanese, with excellent customer communication skills and a solid grasp of Japanese business culture, which is essential for engaging with partners, vendors, and regulators.

Business-level proficiency in English to effectively collaborate with global, cross-functional teams, drive clarity on objectives, set expectations, and gather feedback.

The ability to translate complex technical concepts into simple, understandable terms.

A self-starter who thrives in a startup environment, can manage multiple assignments concurrently, work independently, and drive projects to completion with meticulous attention to detail.

Nice to have

Experience in fintech, capital markets, brokerage, or financial APIs.

Prior experience working at a Broker-Dealer or securities firm in Japan or the APAC region.

Knowledge of Japanese brokerage, post-trade, and settlement operations, NISA, and the JFSA regulatory framework.

Experience closing enterprise deals in partnership with Account Executives.

Possession of US securities qualifications such as SIE and/or Series 7.

Familiarity with Metabase.

Experience working with the FIX protocol.

Experience working with OpenAPI, ReadMe, and documentation platforms.

A strong desire to learn more about the securities industry.

Skills & tools

REST APIs

SDKs

WebSockets

Postman

Grafana

JSON

FIX protocol (nice to have)

Metabase (nice to have)

OpenAPI (nice to have)

ReadMe (nice to have)

Practical notes

Competitive salary and stock options.

Health benefits starting on day one.

A one-time USD $500 allowance for home office setup.

A monthly stipend of USD $150 via a Brex Card for work-related expenses.

Opportunities for professional development, including technical growth, conference attendance, and industry recognition.

Flexible remote work arrangements with an async-first approach to promote work-life balance.

The company is an equal opportunity workplace.