Alpaca x Conviction Trading Hackathon

Build a trading strategy. Compete for $2,000. You might even leave with a job.

What you can win $2,000 Grand Prize — Best Performing Strategy Build your strategy during the hackathon, then put it to work in paper trading. Strategies will remain active for two weeks following the event, with performance tracked on the Conviction leaderboard. The strongest strategy will win $2,000, with performance evaluated across returns, risk-adjusted performance, drawdown, and consistency. Special Recognition — Most Creative Strategy We’ll also recognize one of the most original strategies built at the event, based on the creativity of the thesis, use of signals and data, and how differentiated the approach is. Career Opportunities at Conviction We’re recruiting Conviction’s founding engineer directly from the builders we meet at the hackathon. Rather than relying solely on a traditional interview process, we want to build alongside exceptional engineers and see how they think, experiment, navigate ambiguity, and ship. Career Opportunities at Alpaca Get the chance to meet senior members of the Alpaca team and learn more about career opportunities and open roles at the company. Explore open roles at Alpaca

Join Alpaca × Conviction (YC S25) in San Francisco for an afternoon of AI, trading, and hands-on building. Alpaca builds the brokerage and market infrastructure that powers modern investing products, giving developers the APIs to work with market data, paper trading, and real-world execution. Conviction (YC S25) is building an agentic trading desk for everyday investors. Start with an investing idea, express it in natural language, turn it into a strategy, backtest and refine it, and create AI agents that can monitor the market around your thesis. At the hackathon, you’ll use these tools to go from idea → strategy → backtest → paper trading in a single afternoon. If you want to build at the intersection of AI, markets, and consumer fintech, this is one of the best ways to meet us. Schedule 12:00–12:15 — Welcome + Challenge Kickoff Meet Alpaca and Conviction, hear the challenge, form teams, and get ready to build. 12:15–12:45 — Alpaca: From Trading Idea to Real-World Execution A conversation on the infrastructure behind modern trading, from market data and APIs to execution, backtesting, and AI agents. 12:45–1:00 — Conviction Demo See an investing idea go from natural language to a backtested strategy and paper trading. 1:00–2:30 — Build Sprint Build, test, and refine your strategy with support from Alpaca and Conviction. 2:30–3:30 — Final Presentations Teams present what they built, what their backtest showed, and what they learned. Projects will be judged by Alexandros Kyriakakis, Engineering Team Lead at Alpaca, alongside the Conviction team. The strategies go into paper trading on Monday and remain active for two weeks. Follow the Conviction leaderboard as performance unfolds in real market conditions. At the end of the competition, we’ll select the winner of the $2,000 Grand Prize. What to expect Hear directly from the Alpaca team Hear from Tony Lee, Chief Brokerage Officer, Alpaca and Oscar Levy, Founder & CEO of River Markets, on prediction markets and the evolution of professional trading Build and backtest a trading strategy in natural language Learn how trading ideas move from thesis to real-world execution Meet students, engineers, traders, founders, and fintech builders from across the Bay Area Meet the Conviction founders as we recruit our founding engineer Present what you built and see what everyone else came up with No trading or coding experience required. Bring your laptop and an idea. We’ll take care of the rest.

Please register only if you are able to make it in-person in SF.

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