Hello Laissez Faire, I like the private professional system developer. Are you planning to back test and optimize the algo, right?
Yes. I'm thinking that's the best solution in order to avoid any conflict of interest and make sure I retain as much control as possible. Something to that effect, I suppose, although I wouldn't exactly call it an algorithm in the way most people think when the term "algo" is used. Best regards.
Not sure that your assumption is right regarding the estimate of work required. It might takes more time than 150 man/hours. And 100$/hour is a very good rate for a developer (assuming USD$).
I'm just going with the estimated quote I was given by a prior programmer. Let's say 200 hours, then. What would you say is a more correct estimae for a developer? Did you mean the rate was too high or too low? The other programmer I talked to earlier today (head of a professional firm) thought he could do it in 2 weeks, although I didn't share much details beyond the general framework/functionality. Regardless, I think I'm going down the collaboration path at this point...
If you can find a developer who can do it in 2 weeks, go for it!!! But I would raise a red flag if someone tells me that he can develop an app/software in a specific number of hours, without knowing any details of it. Just estimating the work to do require a couple of hours. Assessing what needs to be done based on the requirements is not something that is done over a cup of coffee. Keep in mind that there are 2 ways of paying for developing an app. You can do it time & materials, or for a fix price. Both have their cons and pros.
For sure. For what it's worth this is exactly what this guy was offering to help me out with, i.e., making sure the other developer was properly qualified and had good ideas for solving it. But when he learned more about the system he offered to do it himself through his firm as he too believes in the idea. However, this firm is trying to break into finance and algorithmic trading, so he would want to use the system in a professional capacity (even offering me to trade for them) if they find that it's something that's profitable. And that's the red flag here for me. While it can possibly result in an even better solution, I'm not really keen on the idea of sharing it with a firm. Especially if they find that they want to use it themselves for their own trading operations. Suddenly lots of things happening here out of nowhere as both these opportunities simply arose out of a discussion on machine learning in a forum for finance here in Norway and where both these people reached out to me afterwards. With the system developer who will help me out for personal use we're operating within a time line of < 3 months, but I'm not in a hurry. I want to make sure it's solved and completed on a very high level this time with all lose ends tied down for sure. I'm probably going to do it with the 'private guy', but we'll see.
Quick comment/question: Both developers suggest a web based solution/application for this and have a good idea for how to solve it. While I can see the advantages with this approach it seems like a potential disadvantage for me further down the road if the collaboration should go sour. Even if I have full access to everything, I assume such a solution is more demanding technically to maintain and something that could be beyond me to service on my own? The current solution I have is 100 % local with everything located on my personal computer and it's run bug-free for the last several years without requiring any maintenance. Meaning I don't need any programming expertise or guidance to run it once it's functioning properly. Any wise comments here?
as an exercise, post what you would ask this programmer to do. Not your system itself, just any system.
Web based is good if you want to access from anywhere and from smart phone or tablet. Overhead will be the web hosting of your application. Plus code base will be more complex and layered. I would stick to desktop solution if it works for you, unless you need the above.
I'd say access anywhere is a premium feature I don't really need and would personally prefer a desktop solution, but both developers, particularly the private one preferred a web solution for other reasons beyond mere access. I want to make sure I have a program/solution that can run locally without me needing any further support. I don't fully understand the web solution yet as I haven't really had time to look into it, but I imagine it's something that requires more from me if me and the programmer part ways further down the road. Would that be correct?