Execution, risk controls, reconciliation and monitoring, built to run automatically and to be stopped by a human.
For trading and investment operations that need the plumbing done right: one place in the code that can send an order, limits enforced twice, a kill switch that works from a phone, reconciliation against the broker before anything resumes, and an audit log that can prove what the system held. You own the account, the strategy and the decisions. I build and run the rails around them.
Fixed scope, fixed fee, quoted after a scoping call. Tell me what you are running.
What gets built
Execution
- One submission boundary, proven by a test that parses the source
- Multi-leg orders sent as one order, never legged
- A price-walking loop that reprices limit orders and never falls through to an unbounded market order
Risk controls
- A kill switch reachable in one action from a phone, rebuilt from the audit log on every restart, cleared only by a person
- A daily loss breaker latched per trading date, not per process
- Size limits applied once when a size is chosen and again when the order is checked
Reconciliation and monitoring
- The broker as the only source of truth: reconcile before anything resumes, halt on any mismatch
- A hash-chained audit log with one enforced writer; a failed write halts trading
- A status page and alerts a person can read on a phone, and a halt that parks the process instead of crash-looping
How it goes live
What the system must do and must never do, each rule with its reason, signed off before any code.
Design first, naming the alternatives rejected. Tests pin every rail. Every decision gets a dated record you keep.
Shadow first, then the broker's sandbox, then live at the smallest size allowed. Nothing skips a stage.
Monitored during market hours, with the kill switch in your hands and mine. Every incident becomes a rule, and every rule becomes a mechanism.
Shapes and price
Build: a fixed scope and a fixed fee, written after the scoping call, with source code, support and monitoring terms stated up front. Most builds run six to twelve weeks. The Rails Review fee is credited in full against a build booked within 90 days.
Operate: a monthly retainer sized to the hours the system actually needs, most between $5,000 and $10,000 a month, covering monitoring during market hours, incident response, releases and the decision records.
Advise: ten to fifteen hours a month at $250 an hour for an operation that has its own engineers and wants the rails reviewed and the hard calls made with someone who has made them before.
What I will not do: generate signals, hold discretion over your orders, market performance, or recommend a strategy. Your credentials stay in your environment, and the account, the strategy and every trading decision stay yours. That line is where the regulators draw theirs, and it is where I draw mine.
For regulated or allocator-backed firms I answer your vendor due-diligence questionnaire on request and bind technology errors-and-omissions and cyber insurance before work starts. Plan four to eight weeks from first call to signed agreement if your compliance function is involved.
Where this comes from
Fourteen years on the infrastructure side of trading: the order-entry and market-maker gateways at the New York Stock Exchange, then market connectivity, an FPGA squad and the DevOps team at Chicago Trading Company. In 2026 I built Argus, a platform for fully automated trading strategies, by guiding an AI coding agent under the rails above. It went from first commit to a real brokerage account in nine weeks, traded at minimum size, and its first strategy was shut down on pre-registered evidence that it did not pay. The rails held when the strategy did not. Part one tells how it was built; part two tells how the evidence was kept honest; a reference implementation is public on GitHub.
I am based in the Chicago area and work remotely, with time in the Loop when the work calls for it.
Tell me what you are running
A 30-minute call. What you trade, where it executes, what watches it, and what stopped it the last time something went wrong. You leave with a written scope or a straight answer.
Nothing on this site is investment advice. I do not sell strategies; the one in the write-up lost money and was shut down.