JOB ROLE
salary
$180k–$225k
LOCATION
New York City
JOB TYPE
Full-time
EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
5 Years
DEPARTMENT
Compliance Department
About Us
Tradecraft builds infrastructure for AI-powered trading. Our flagship product, Agent Ledger, is the first portfolio identity layer for AI trading agents — a hosted service that gives each agent its own isolated portfolio, fund validation, and trade journal inside a single brokerage account.
We're at the intersection of two fast-moving worlds: autonomous AI agents and regulated financial markets. The developers and firms building on top of us need to know that the infrastructure beneath their agents is sound, auditable, and built with compliance in mind from day one — not bolted on after the fact.
We're a small, technical founding team that moves fast and takes the long view. We're looking for a co-founder who understands that compliance isn't a constraint on the product — it's a competitive advantage.
About This Role
This is a founding seat, not a hire. You'll shape what Tradecraft becomes as much as what it avoids.
The CCO role at most fintechs is a checkpoint at the end of the pipeline. Here, it's a seat at the table from the beginning. You'll own the regulatory posture of the company — advising on product decisions, managing broker relationships, and building the compliance infrastructure that lets us scale from developer tool to institutional platform.
As we expand from paper trading into live execution, and eventually into multi-broker integrations and team accounts, the questions get harder: What are our obligations when an AI agent causes a wash sale? What disclosures do we need when a developer's bot flags their Alpaca account for PDT? Where does "infrastructure" end and "investment adviser" begin? You'll be the person with the answers.
Responsibilities
Own the company's regulatory strategy across SEC, FINRA, and applicable state jurisdictions as the product evolves from developer tool to financial infrastructure
Advise the product and engineering team on compliance implications of new features before they ship — particularly around live trading, agent authority scoping, and multi-user account access
Build and maintain the AML, KYC, and data governance frameworks required for live brokerage integrations
Manage and develop relationships with broker partners, starting with Alpaca, and evaluate compliance requirements for future integrations (Tradier, Interactive Brokers, others)
Draft and own Terms of Service, user agreements, and risk disclosures — particularly the boundary between "infrastructure provider" and "investment adviser"
Monitor the evolving regulatory landscape around AI-driven trading and autonomous agents, and translate that into actionable policy for the team
Establish audit log standards and data retention policies that satisfy both our users' needs and regulatory requirements
Represent the company in any regulatory inquiries or examinations
Requirements
Deep familiarity with SEC, FINRA, and broker-dealer regulations — particularly as they apply to algorithmic and automated trading
Experience at a fintech, trading firm, broker-dealer, or financial regulator — ideally in a role where you were close to the product, not just the legal team
Ability to read a technical spec and identify compliance risk before it becomes a legal problem
Strong opinions about where AI agent autonomy and financial regulation are heading — and how to build ahead of that curve
Comfortable operating with high ambiguity in an early-stage company; you won't have a team under you on day one
Existing relationships with legal counsel, regulators, or broker compliance teams are a strong plus
Equity-minded — this is a co-founder role with meaningful ownership, not a salary-heavy exec hire
"I built Tradecraft because sophisticated, autonomous trading strategies shouldn't require a hedge fund's engineering budget to deploy. The idea that any developer or trader can describe a strategy in plain English and have an AI agent execute it against real markets — that's what drives everything we do. Every time someone spins up their first agent and watches it reason through a trade, I'm reminded exactly why we built this."
Michael
Founder