Greetings --
I do not enjoy being the bearer of bad news. But --- expectations may need some adjustment.
Developing trading systems that have a reasonable probability of earning profits exceeding risk free rates while holding risk to a reasonable tolerance is Very hard. To be "Rich by Wednesday" is an unreasonable expectation.
As a developer and trader, skills in three areas are required:
1. Domain knowledge. The issue being modeled and traded, the brokerage business, trading system development.
2. Programming expertise. Be fluent in the language the trading system will be written in. Know programming, data structures, debugging, etc. AmiBroker is the best of the traditional platforms. The industry is rapidly moving from traditional development platforms to machine learning. Learn about machine learning. Learn Python.
3. Mathematics. Modeling and simulation. Be competent to design and analyze statistical reports describing the results of the system. Trading systems are essentially sets of simultaneous equations. Know math through calculus and linear algebra.
I have a new book coming out in about one month -- "Foundations of Trading." It is short -- 150 pages or so -- and inexpensive -- US$16. In it I gather the fundamental material from my 50 years of experience in this field, my five previous books, multiple presentations, and many conversations and communications.
It outlines what a trading system developer needs to know about development, how to apply the scientific method to trading development and trading, how to compute the risk of any data series (even before a trading model has been applied), how to compute the risk of a trading system, how to compute the profit potential of a trading system, what might work, what cannot possibly work (even though much of trading world preaches that it is The way), how to evaluate any system using a universal objective function, how to deal with risk, how to tell when a system is not working, how to properly use position sizing, etc. In summary, there is very little that works, it is very hard to find what does work, and constant attention is needed to keep it working.
When it is available through Amazon, I will announce it on ASF. Read it.
In the mean time, read the book I recommend to everyone who is considering trading. To everyone, actually, trading or just getting along in the world. Daniel Kahneman, "Thinking, Fast and Slow." Dr. Kahneman is a Nobel winning economist. His book describes several economic concepts, but the most important parts are his explanations of how we fool ourselves.
https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555/
To succeed in trading, you must be able to compete with the best traders in the world on every trade you make, right from the start. There are no satellite tournaments, no mulligans, no handicaps. Every trader is competing with David Shaw, James Simons, and Goldman Sachs on every trade they make.
Plan on investing the entire 10,000 hours thought to be the requirement to achieve expertise in any field. (Malcolm Gladwell, "Outliers") Your competition already has.
Best regards,
Howard