How I developed a trading system as a software engineer with no formal finance background
<p>Over the last six years, I taught myself the ins and outs of trading and built a fully autonomous system that’s now managing several hundred thousand USD in assets. In this article, I want to share my journey with you. I’ll discuss the challenges I faced as a software engineer with no finance background, the strategies I used to develop my trading system, and the lessons I’ve learned along the way.</p>
<p>Whether you’re an aspiring trader with a non-traditional background or a seasoned pro looking for new insights, I hope my story can provide inspiration and guidance as you pursue your own trading journey.</p>
<h1>My First Trade</h1>
<p>My first foray into trading was actually back in 2009. At the time I was working at an oilfield facilities management company on SCADA systems. I had a handful of coworkers who actively traded, and one in particular I’ll call “D” taught me some of the fundamentals of value investing. He taught me to examine Yahoo Finance “profile” sections of stocks and dig through debt-to-equity ratios. I thought I had it figured out, opened a Fidelity account, and promptly lost $3500 investing in a Chinese SEC fraud masterpiece called “Duoyuan Global Water” (DGW) that looked <strong><em>fantastic</em></strong> on paper. I swore off foreign stocks, value investing, and trading altogether for a time.</p>
<h1>The Most Right I’ve Ever Been</h1>
<p>A couple of years later in 2012, I stumbled upon the white paper for Bitcoin when it was still new-ish. I quickly evangelized the concept of cryptocurrency to my coworkers, set up my machine as a mining rig, and joined a mining pool. I think in sum total I mined over 42BTC worth. In 2013 I left the oilfield services company to start my own software company, and like most individual contributors-turned-business-owner, I had no idea what I was doing when it came to sales and marketing. My business survived longer than most new companies, but within five years I was out of cash, and had gradually sold off my crypto to help keep the lights on.</p>
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