In a world where numbers dance and algorithms breathe, I found my rhythm. But my journey into the heart of Fintech was less of a straight highway and more of a winding path with its share of thorns and roses. I invite you to walk alongside me through this adventure...
Since I was a child, I exhibited interest in many different topics ranging from history and mythology to engineering and philosophy. I found my afternoons lost amidst the rustling pages of encyclopedias, diving into realms deemed 'not for kids', hungry for the knowledge that lay in the forbidden fruit of adult discourse.
While my parents nurtured my insatiable curiosity, the world outside often responded with a cold, mocking breeze that tried to extinguish my flame of inquiry. I’ve always been ostracized, mocked, laughed at, and bullied. Even though I was always the top student throughout my entire education process, it wasn’t fulfilling to me. I simply couldn’t get deeper conversations, more complexity, or satiation from the education that was given to me.
It is important to stress that this isn’t just due to the fact that I went to specific schools, believe me, I spent a lot of time talking with foreigners from prestigious universities/schools where I soon learned that my education system had more breadth and wealth than theirs which placed me in greater despair.
In the quiet corners of libraries, amidst the whispers of pages, I found my escape. Where others saw dusty shelves, I saw doors to endless realms. I deeply enjoyed works from authors such as Carl Jung, Husserl, Fernando Pessoa, Dostoyevsky, Bertrand Russel, Miloš Crnjanski, and more.
My safe place, aside from books, soon became gaming where I deeply enjoyed strategy games, and I still do to this very day. To be more precise, the parts that I liked the most were systemizing, staying one step ahead, optimization of systems, and overall methodology and statistics that came with it. This led me to the world of coding where I created custom mods and dashboards to help me be more effective and shrewd.
When I started to pursue a degree in Psychology, I fell in love even more with statistics and methodology. Thus, I started coding more proactively by trying to explore the human mind and map its intricacies to algorithms. I’ve spent a lot of time creating my own machine-learning models to explore the fields of depth and cognitive psychology which ultimately led me to be very interested in the field of Data Science.
Through my Data Science work, I got an opportunity to write technical articles for AlgoTrading101, one of the biggest algorithmic trading courses recommended by Investopedia and Bloomberg, which opened a whole new world of finance, hedge funds, and algorithmic trading. A world where retail investors strive to beat Goliaths.
My passion for coding grew even more and it led to making mini-courses and becoming an instructor for the course itself.
The next few years were spent mostly freelancing, teaching traders to code and bring their ideas to life, and making rich people richer. The ethical dilemma of aiding wealth accumulation gnawed at me until the serendipitous venture into a startup unfolded, promising a blend of technology and humanity…
I got an opportunity to co-found a startup where I worked with large datasets of psychological and musical variables and patented technologies that accurately screen people for more than 15 mental health conditions just from their reactions to music. It felt like a dream come true and I worked on all aspects from coding to HIPAA compliance and the world of business.
The startup didn’t succeed due to many reasons that I won’t go into. I’ll just say that I experienced a lot of stress, burnout, and hardships. I felt that my skills were deteriorating and started to look for new opportunities. The founder of AlgoTrading101, Lucas Liew, to whom I owe a lot, turned my attention to OpenBB, an open-source replacement for Bloomberg.
I quickly became a user of OpenBB and started writing a blog post on it where I noticed that the careers sections had some openings. Each tick of the clock after sending an email was a drumbeat of anticipation, until the day a reply landed in my inbox, unlocking the next chapter of my journey. After a few months, I met the wonderful people behind OpenBB and started a Software Engineering position with the best company culture I ever experienced.
As an OpenBB Platform Engineering Team Lead, I get to deal with many interesting problems that range from building the OpenBB Platform v4 and creating a testing framework to tackling a living software and experiencing the world of Open Source.
With each dawn at OpenBB, I see a horizon full of possibilities - to mold the clay of open-source investment research into a legacy of access and empowerment. And as we venture into tomorrow, I carry with me the tapestry of my past, each thread a narrative of trials, triumphs, and relentless exploration.