Discussion of article "Do Traders Need Services From Developers?"

 

New article Do Traders Need Services From Developers? has been published:

Algorithmic trading becomes more popular and needed, which naturally led to a demand for exotic algorithms and unusual tasks. To some extent, such complex applications are available in the Code Base or in the Market. Although traders have simple access to those apps in a couple of clicks, these apps may not satisfy all needs in full. In this case, traders look for developers who can write a desired application in the MQL5 Freelance section and assign an order. Just like this:

Order for Expert Advisor Consisting of 4 Custom Indicators

Generally speaking, this kind of order is pretty ordinary and straightforward in terms of programming, but it requires the developer to create a unique EA for the specific trader. Apparently, for the customer it is more convenient to work with such an expert and he is willing to pay for the job. There are many orders as such in the Freelance section, and this is a great opportunity to gain income through Freelance jobs in a short time, solving an interesting and unique challenge.

Author: MetaQuotes Software Corp.

 

It's like that - "don't believe your eyes."

Сам Фриланс остается в тени более наглядных сервисов, и многие разработчики ошибочно обходят его стороной, полагая, что там нельзя серьезно заработать. Между тем, топовые фриланс-девелоперы зарабатывают столько же, сколько лучшие продавцы в Маркете!

16, 18 people per customer. Where to go? Where else to attract programmers?

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In the banner - "800 orders are waiting for you". Where from? Are these the ones that have been hanging for months and weeks? So no one is going to order on them, these customers have already batch-trained potential performers, learnt everything they wanted, and each performer has devoted three days of his life to it.

* * *

By and large, there is nothing extraordinary in this order from the programming point of view

It's a gridder's order. No grider's customer has a complete idea of how his grider should work and has never been accepted the first time. And from the fact that the customer by not imagining the work of his gridder, there are big problems for the executor.

* * *

Such orders are also in Freelance and there are quite a lot of them. Of course, they are estimated cheaper, but also require much less labour input - it is not bad to get $50 for half an hour or hour of work. In addition, you can simultaneously perform many orders, and the total earnings can be quite solid.

Customers of such orders, as a rule, do not even imagine how exactly they want to determine the rebound. Therefore, the situation is the same as in the previous case. In addition, the Expert Advisor can work with market orders and pending orders, and if pending, it means changing the type of order - from stop to limit. A good half of the customers of advisors with pending orders do not even know that there are stop and limit orders, for them they are just pending. Even the question "what type of pending orders" is not answered immediately.

If the order with modification of someone else's Expert Advisor, it means that the customer will blame all the problems of all previous programmers on the last programmer.

* * *

Let's also add here that every customer will want to talk about the weather or something similar.

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It's also a kind of a sport for customers to push it to the fullest and see if it works. Each customer should strongly argue that in his task is not something that is not there. If the performer does not follow the customer's lead, he can be blackmailed with negative feedback.

 
Often traders do not even need to develop an application from scratch, but необходимо внести изменения в уже имеющийся код. In other words, a trader already has an Expert Advisor or indicator in which he does not like something. For example, one indicator is not enough to get more reliable signals, or it is necessary to change the principle of mani-management.

Such orders are also available in Freelance and there are quite a lot of them. Of course, they are priced cheaper, but they also require much less labour input - it is not bad to get $50 for half an hour of work. In addition, you can simultaneously perform many orders, and the total earnings can be quite solid.

Conjuncture article.

... You need to make changes in the existing code. ... Of course, they are estimated cheaper, but they also require much less labour effort

No sane developer -- for cheap -- is going to dig around and make changes to someone else's EA code:

1) an Expert Advisor is always a part of a trading strategy -- it is something that the programmer managed to understand and implement, and the customer managed to explain.
Therefore, understanding someone else's Expert Advisor is not the same as understanding the author's trading strategy.

2) For customers of modifications, both the trading strategy itself and the EA's work are out of the "their understanding" zone.
Making the required modification can and often leads to a new working out - working out that is not clear and not needed by the customer.
And then how to prove to the customer that the reason is in the EA and not in the modification made.

3) In a good way, other people's programmes of such complexity as Expert Advisors cannot be edited. Even a cosmetic edit is always a risk of getting "bugs" on your account - both those that were there but the customer didn't notice them and those that may pop up with a minor edit. Bugs" means not only coding errors, but also errors in the developer's understanding of the customer's trading strategy.

It's not bad at all to get $50 for half an hour of work.

Well, it's already a common song "there for 5 minutes of work".

 
Freelance itself remains in the shadow of more visible services, and many developers mistakenly bypass it, believing that it is impossible to earn serious money there. <br/ translate="no">.

You should ask in private correspondence -- almost all developers are known by name -- why they ignore the Work service.

The topic is not new and has been repeatedly raised -- only "rubbed, spit, passed" -- from the last such conversation only 5% commission from the developer said -- everyone is happy.

 
abolk:

They would ask in private correspondence -- almost all developers are known by name -- why they ignore the Work service.

The topic is not new and has been raised many times -- just "rubbed, spit, passed" -- from the last such conversation only 5% commission from the developer said -- everyone is happy.

And what do you think is the reason for "ignoring"?

If we don't go into the position of "I won't pay a cent commission" and don't look at the fact that 328 works were completed only for the incomplete month of June.


After publishing a banner about 800 works, we carried out a thorough automatic cleaning, removing time-consuming orders to the archive. Now the list of orders is lighter.

 
Integer:

It's like that - "don't believe your eyes."

16, 18 people per customer. Where to go? Where else to involve programmers?

If it were so, all orders would be dealt with instantly.

Don't confuse the average number of performed tasks for 3 years for each performer and one-step readiness of the mass of performers for each order. The problem is that there are always orders, but not enough performers.

Well, and the constant diversion of order execution away from the service and criticism in silence with complete disregard of other people's work on maintaining the service with the provision of customers, right?

 
Renat:

And what do you think is the reason for the "ignoring"?

If we don't go into the position of "I won't pay a cent of commission" and don't look at the fact that 328 works were completed only for the incomplete month of June.

Why are you asking?

If you're going to get involved in the service and need considerations, that's one thing, you can have a constructive conversation. If just, like, once again to promote the service, well, and in between the PPR, it's another.

State your intentions.

 
abolk:

Why are you asking?

If you are going to do the service and need considerations, it is one thing, you can talk constructively. If just, like, once again to promote the service, well, and in between PPR, it's another.

We only work here like slaves on the galleys.

Can you tell me what the problems are?

 
Renat:

1. If it were, all orders would be dealt with instantly.

2. Don't confuse the average number of completed tasks for 3 years for each performer and the instant readiness of the mass of performers for each order. The problem is that there are always orders, but not enough performers.

3. Well, and the constant diversion of the execution of orders away from the service and criticism in silence with complete ignorance of other people's work to maintain the service with the provision of customers, right?

1. Maybe it is from some peculiarities of this sphere of activity. Maybe some orders are simply unfulfillable, the customer is not very accurately represents what he wants, maybe the cost turns out to be higher than it seemed.

2. I don't know what momentary, what average. I just see that for one order there are 16 applicants for fulfilment. Given the dynamics of orders, this means that each performer, in order to get an order, must read 16 tasks. Not much fun.

3. No one was taken away. Clearly visible some such performers, these are hovering address requests confirmed by the performer.

To use the service, it must give some advantages. The security of the transaction is certainly good, and is of great importance, but it is not all. The executor himself must be protected. Now there is no difference whether to work directly or through the service, the customer has the same opportunity to blackmail the performer with negative feedback, ie the performer in any case is not protected from blackmail with negative feedback. From the point of view of statistics, of course, this is nothing, think about it, one performer will leave, another will come. So the performer has to wriggle in front of every autocrat, just to avoid getting negative feedback (even when the order is executed perfectly). It's not much fun either.

 
Renat:

We're just working hard here like slaves in the galleys.

Can you outline the problems?

1. The advantages of the service Work are indisputable:

-- advertising of the resource, in particular, unprecedented advertising of the resource through the Terminal

-- advertising of the developer directly in the Work service through the "TOP developers".

1.2"Security of agreement through the service" -- the advantage is not critical -- when communicating outside the service, as a rule, full prepayment is made and there is a trouble-free return of the prepayment

1.3"Arbitration" -- more of an anti-advantage.

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2. Disadvantages:

2.1"Unhealthy dumping" -- cost is higher on the side -- bringing a customer in from the outside is a loss of customer in most cases.

Customers in their majority -- they are 1-2 order customers. Customers in their majority -- a) don't know exactly what they want -- b) don't know what they can offer -- c) are unable to evaluate the development.

I.e. the choice is often based on cost, not on the developer. This is why, in early discussions of TOP, there was a slip of the tongue that no one looks at TOP and that a $10 development is no worse than a $100 development. At the same time, it was constantly overlooked that development from different developers is far from being the same.

If we do not take into account the "achievements" of a couple of d'Artagnans with questionable rates, volumes and costs -- the average individual monthly "norm" of orders is 10-20. In principle, it doesn't matter who has how many orders per month -- what is important is that the number of orders of a more or less beaten developer -- quite passes with its own advertising outside the service Work. I can be wrong, because there are no accurate statistics, and "on the word" trust is not.

2.2."non-availability of thetop" -- the top is formed by the number of completed works. I.e. over time it becomes unattainable and uninteresting first of all for "ancient" regulars of the resource.

The problems of calculating the TOP by the number of completed works have been discussed and the main one is that the quantity does not correspond to the quality.

And since the Work service positions itself as a "Service of professional developers", the TOP should also be a qualitative indicator.

I, in particular, suggested to take into account written articles when calculating the TOP. This approach gives an alternative option of fast "growth" in the TOP + additionally stimulates the "Articles" section. Especially since the article is paid for and its accounting in the service is more than natural -- also open source codes of indicators and Expert Advisors are published by the developer as part of the article -- and the complexity of the article does not compare to a dozen of orders.

Also, perhaps, it makes sense to remove from the TOP calculation -- a) fast-firing works of 40-50 seconds, otherwise why would the statistic indicator "average time of work execution" -- b) works below a certain cost minimum tied to the average cost for this period, which may allow to take into account works from a certain minimum level of complexity -- c) works, such as "bonus" -- d) works with a description in the style of "abra-cadabra", by the title and a brief description should be clear the complexity of the work.

2.3"Free entrance to the service" -- here it is not clear what service the administration creates -- "Service of professional developers" or "School of beginner developers". At least, customers coming to the service should be aware and not be misled by slogans.

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There are some other small things, if you want and need, you can summarise everything.

 

I left there because of the unattainability of the top, and mostly people look there, thinking that the best performers are at the top. But it's often the speedsters who are there.

On 115 of my requests for execution only 15 "shot", and 10 of them - address requests, ie, brought by me personally from the outside, and ... safely dissolved in the sea of cheap performers. True, some then came back with requests to redo what there they have piled on sewing machines shorthand writers. And they paid threefold - first the price of the TOP stitcher, then my 2.5 times higher (to disassemble someone else's - it is in 99% to spend time to disassemble and understand that there is rubbish, and the proposal to write from scratch). By the way, and to be fair - not all of course there in the TOP such as I described, but every returning customer - with a bump from the rake on his forehead.

Secondly - the tasks recently very trivial and not interesting, respectively, and should cost not much. But for the performer "a little" - it is 50 - 100 dollars, and for the customer - 10 - 15..... And labour is labour. Dumping in the service is above all sensible limits. Customers freely juggle a lot of service offers of performers - do you overcharge? 20 quid is brutally expensive, I'll walk away. Go... Less than $50 is not worth taking on. The minimum price threshold is very low.

Although initially the prospects were painted bright to me ....