I'd like your opinions on the likelihood of success of a career move I'm planning. In short, I wanna upgrade from developer to quant trader. [hysterical laughing from the audience at this point ].A little background on me first: I'm employed as a programmer since 15 years, last 10 for company in the financial domain. They sell software doing various stuff, the first 3 years or so I worked back end stuff (option pricing and auto trading engines) for a trading desk doing quite well (some $15M per year in good years) then the crysis came and they didn't fare so well anymore so developers were moved to other projects (traders were downsized or moved, can't tell for sure). Now I'm doing operations stuff, the pricing and risk part, but things are a bit stale and I'm not growing professionally (and cash worth in the bank either).

I've been working in my spare time (quite an amount over so many years eventually) to learn and understand the domain, specifically options trading. I have an electrical engineering / computer science background and don't qualify as a real quant, I'm a hack at best. I recognize hacks in developers without a formal computer science backround, they tend to lack basic knowledge as they haven't stumbled upon it in their Brownian acquire of expertize.I know some theory behind options pricing and published a model of my own derived from BlackScholes trough the martingale approach to options pricing, just to show I comprehend something. It doesn't beat the markets or I would have used it myself. Which is exactly where I am at the moment, I got another now and it seems to perform well. Too well given my long term dissapointing experiences, although I've triple checked. Cannot be, I'm definitely missing something.I'm evaluating my options now before attempting to negotiate with my folks. The relationship between employee and employer is dramatically asymmetric, so 'negotiation' without alternative options is a meaningless word.I'll continue this thread later, some urgent chores came up.

Referring to my previous thread (What's like to be a quantitative developer in a hedge fund), the bitter realization is that "Working as an air-hostess will not make you a pilot" So the question is what would you favor from the following options if you were in my place (as much as you can imagine yourself there and I've been able to picture a situation):1) Tell management about my research results so far. The reason I'm weary about this is that they didn't give me the feeling of being receptive or helpful with respect to my interests.2) Apply to some quant/trader interviews and explain them my idea. It's very hard getting an interview (tried a few with just a CV, without mentioning the research stuff though) and as expected, received exactly zero answers. Not even sure it got trough their spam filter. Again, I'm weary in disclosing my hard worked strategy to some complete stranger who'll just say thanks for telling us, we'll use it but we don't have a position for you at the moment. Do try again in a few years.3) Refine the idea, build the trading system myself (tied to Interactive Brokers), back test and stress test and live (paper) test and if it still works, find out capital willing to invest in it. This eventually leads me back to either #1 or #2 as with my risk capital (about $10k) even with a 50% per year it'll take a loong time until it starts to mean something. Venture capital it's another idea but noone pays for an idea, you gotta have the implementation ready and I'm getting burned out all working by myself without anyone to consult with.

Some choices:1. Start for yourself.2. Get a job in a school.

Thanks Cuchulainn, option #1 in your list is my current approach actually. #2 it's just for early access to talent, I'm using the laboratories that I do with students to figure out who are the capable ones and it's not always the obvious ones (straight As that is). A whole semester of working with a lot gives me much more time and insight into their potential than a regular interview can.