Hypothetical: suppose you are looking to build out a small team of 2-3 people who are well-versed in the more obscure nuances of option price & volatility modeling, probably on an 'independent contractor'/freelance basis. Paying these people is out of your pocket, so trying to find an area with a good balance of modern university programs in QF, as well as relatively-low cost of living, seems a high priority...without reducing the odds of finding legit help. Your horizons are North America, Europe or Asia - any particular city/country come to mind?

I've been wandering if central/eastern Europe is a good place to start...worked with some freelancers from there, and they are very diligent in-general, good spoken English, but naturally, online freelancers only go so far before you've got to lead intensively with subject matter that is new to them.

If you want people with practical knowledge, Chicago comes to mind.

If you want people with practical knowledge, Chicago comes to mind.

I think he's looking to do it in a third world country so he can pay them (a lot) less. Otherwise, he could hire outrun.
Maybe he's been  hired as a quant by Goldman and is planning on outsourcing his workload to India?

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If you want people with practical knowledge, Chicago comes to mind.

 Would you figure that just relocating there for 6 months or so and networking through hobbyist groups (Meetup, forums, etc.) would lead to legit contacts (assuming I prove that I have a baseline of competency, as an outsider), or will there be a ceiling when it comes to an independent-type versus having a pedigree at the level of Jane Street, Loop, or other?

If you want people with practical knowledge, Chicago comes to mind.

I think he's looking to do it in a third world country so he can pay them (a lot) less. Otherwise, he could hire outrun.
Maybe he's been  hired as a quant by Goldman and is planning on outsourcing his workload to India?

As a one-man show thus far, yes, that's mostly true. Pardon the ridiculousness of the question, but I am asking in-earnest. Re: Goldman, nah, I'm more than a few levels below that...

Wroclaw, UBS hires a lot there and pays badl, so you can pay a bit more than Wroclaw rates but less than somewhere good. The problem of course is that they won't stay long.

Thank you, Dominic; that's a good start. I think I read that there's a prop firm or two in Wroclaw (or perhaps it was Warsaw).

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There are higher chances of meeting a tooth fairy riding an unicorn, heading to a leprechauns pool party, than finding a quant in Eastern Europe. Not saying they are mythical creatures, but the probability of finding one is lower than simultaneously meeting all the creatures enumerated earlier in the exact pool party context. I know since I'm one of them

I worked for 10 years in finance here and quit 2 years ago for a 50% raise outside finance. Bonus no IP contracts over the stuff I do by myself AT HOME and didn't interest my finance employer the least bit anyways, unless if they prove to be profitable of course. So right now I'm still doing R&D after the day job outside finance, developed my own backtesting system and running live what I pan out on an Interactive Brokers account, again with an auto-trading engine written by myself (same code that runs in backtests). Published my trading engine on GitHub, except for the business logic which is loaded at runtime, unless I somehow fucked up some git push and committed that code too. Not much problem so far anyways since obscurity is security sometimes

I trade options, always fully systematic. Speculation, arbitrage and I'm considering market making but with 2-3 hours per day after 10-12 of day job, plus a family that demands my attention at least sometimes, that's an endeavor I'd rather be doing when I can go full time on this, on my own savings. Worst case some 4 years from now, best case some 1 and a half.

Finance jobs in the area are very rarefied, with quant demand non-existent or at most some "can I haz teh formula" guy who can copy the formula into the code without mixing up the signs. Head tester is the guy who after 5 years of training on the job does interiorize the idea that when volatility shows 1 million, there's probably something wrong in the system. I had guys in IT technical interviews asking me "what's a quant" and HR ladies panicking after I tried to carry an informed conversation on the product they were working on "so you build a platform for trading equity swaps" and the reaction "who told you that?! we're an ISO-8293 certified confidentiality level company, you should not have known anything about the product or client.. no job, no job, get out".

And outside the area (London that is), the whole system is generally a far OTM options selling scheme where my side of the suckers think it's a bargain price to pay (just some small amount of time spent interviewing) for a VERY CONSISTENT WIN at the end, only they neglect to factor in the probability (Dunning Kruger bias) and think they're like at least 50%... what 50%... 90% likely to get the job. Used to be some one in 10k a few years ago, now with the credentialist arms race (20 years head trader at Deutche Bank can't find a job) you have far greater chances of winning the lottery than passing those interviews.

So those who can (like me) better focus on what this business is all about, making money by trading on their own account.

Published my trading engine on GitHub, except for the business logic which is loaded at runtime, unless I somehow fucked up some git push and committed that code too. 

Would you mind sharing that gihub of yours, pls?

Not on the public thread. And if you're really interested you can look it up yourself.

Not on the public thread. And if you're really interested you can look it up yourself.

Why did you even mention your github, then?

Just so that I can mention it on my CV.