When someone considers hiring a programmer to code an idea or strategy, how can that idea remain safe and protected? Sure, an NDA may be signed but.....; is this a legitimate concern?
You keep em compensated well enough to stay with you. I mean, it's either that or you have to have someone program it w/o knowing the strategy, which is going to be pretty fucking hard.
I've heard of people compartmentalizing it by hiring seperate programmers to work on seperate 'chunks' of it, but obviously there are some real challenges there.
Have your programmer create the software but don't provide the inputs, if you're strategy has them. Also, there's much more to it than just writing the program .
Hence my statement re: much more to it. IMO, you're better off having a strategy that is so obviously simple the programmer will happily collect your money and write you off as a crazy person. The simpler the better. Make it so simple they don't believe it will work .
Trying to break it up into pieces and hiring separate people to work on it will be nearly impossible, how are you going to test the whole thing? Not providing input values.. again, how are you going to test it? Also keep in mind that your strategy will evolve over time, as you think of ways to improve it, or parts of it stop working. It's a good idea to keep someone on board and keep em well compensated so they'll keep working for you to improve it, and you won't have to worry as much about them divulging any secrets.
This subject pops up from time to time - you need to trust the people you work with - including your programmer. What I don't get is this: How do you know your strategy works? Did you backtest it? If you did backtest - then how come you cannot program it yourself using trade station or similar? If you did not backtest - then are you sure it works? Are you sure that it can be automated and does not rely on some kind of human judgement?
Another way to look at it; put yourself in their shoes. If you have developed an algorithm that works fairly well, would you use it yourself? The NDA is only going to stop them from re-selling the idea. It may not stop them from using it privately.
The only sure way is to program it yourself. Do some work. Open a book or do some trial and error until you can code it on your own. Breaking it up to farm out to separate coders only works if you know how to code yourself to assemble the pieces - but then why would you have someone else do it at all then? Yes, learning how to code is WORK. Yes, it takes TIME. You can avoid the work or do the work and keep your secret method to yourself. Your choice.