Are you sure about your numbers or did you only back-test your assumptions?
Scaling a trading strategy is quite difficult even with ETFs. If you trade futures which have a huge daily liability then it gets so much worse and options even worse. (Regarding back testing assumption to be filled and scaling).
If you can scale your strategy reliably then you wouldn't ask others to buy in. Any margin account is enough, except if you must outsource risks.
With IVRank and ImpliedVolatility% (I just use black sholes but compare it to your model) being at low bottom and a huge expected change of rho (interest free rate) which me and the markets seem to be unable to price.... what vehicles would you even use to monetize these events (Futures and options don't need to consider rho changes too much if traded in the vicinity if the VIX indicator how can you promise more)?
They ban relative to what trains can provide and since French electricity emits few co2 it's quite and interesting thing to do. I agree on wors of "ban"chosen though. It's more of a market correction, in regards to AirFrance and SNCF (trains) being both government supported.
Not sure about yearly data but France seems to export lots of electricity right now.
As you say, France has very low co2 emission per kwh compared to Germany, that is due to the atomic electricity production.
The ban is relative to "how long does it take to go there by train", I agree it's weird to compute that. Especially thinking about the potential of SNCF and AirFrance maybe considering their impact respectively. It's a good concern and we need to watch that.
In France this is good advice too. If ones doesn't like doing tax things this is generally good advice.
And don't be the cheap client yourself in that regard 120€/hour for a good/excellent freelance accountant, I never want to go back to less experienced/professional/passionate ones.
Some examples:
When you open a one person business in France there is a program to give you a 0% tax rate in the first year, but you need to apply and for that you need to know it exists.
Employing yourself can cost you 70% taxes. At the start when you rates might be low you can pay around 25% with the right corporate structure, instead of up to 45%.
I like to answer your question from my experience.
Your point is valid. Personally I would not join a company, as a software developer for software without tests. I would consider it if they hire me to lead their code improvement efforts, but even then no tests reflect engineering and business culture in that company (which is very hard to change).
A big point I like to add is that new developers make more mistakes within a system they don't know. Having a good test suite gives young and experienced developers faster feedback about their assumptions of the system. Also unit tests act like an always up to date documentation which a developer can read to understand important assumptions about the parts of a system.
I like to share my experience:
Writing tests from day 1 is essential. Think of tests as a road for your business logic, which is a car. It might seems expensive to write tests but bad quality code slows you down within weeks rather than months.
Unit tests are important tests and are very useful for engineers. As others mentioned, thinking about test-ability keeps code simple, which is a must when you want to move fast. Test-ability (have the TDD mindset and thinking, if you don't then apply TDD until you think tests while writing your code) usually translates to readable and maintainable code. When you write good unit tests, then most assumptions are documented in an automated way and tested at every execution of the unit tests. When a unit test fails, then the error message and the test name should tell you precisely the assumption and what is broken, that ultimately makes you really fast in maintaining and (with a good overall design) changing code.
When you want to be really fast then have fewer or no integration tests. That is because integration tests usually span over several parts of your software. So a change in any part will lead to probably several changes in the corresponding integration tests. That makes it more expensive to change things fast. On top of that, many integration tests are more complex to write because of the work in mocking adjacent parts of the software.
System/Black box tests. Those test are very important for evaluating business value. One tests common happy paths from your customers and validate that business value/ feature x still works. Again like with the system tests, the process of doing, deciding and prioritising will lead to clear business values and very important a better shared vision between the developers and business. The software serves the purpose to be used by a customer, the system tests are ultimately a distilled version of what you the business is selling and it's an automated process to ensure that this value is delivered.
Even the best software developers do mistakes and forget. I have not yet seen a team which profits from not writing tests. It takes some time to write good software -> testing and approaches like TDD are some of the ways to start climbing that hill.
About your questions:
A robust deployment pipeline is the right way to go and can be even better leveraged with tests. Example: you can connect your system tests to the roll-back functionality and re-deploy the last working state.
You are right about your worries about Spaghetti code and technical dept, from my experience they are always an issue from early on. But also keep in mind that no one is perfect so even if it's only you writing code, you will find code written from you, which gives you goose bumps. A nice approach to code quality is the in-place refactoring, that is you don't do re-factoring as a task. Each time you touch code and it's not very clear or the structure/ design is not ideal then you re-factor with each and every task (piece by piece). A rule of thumb: When a 1 day tasks adds 3 days of re-factoring (only fixing the touched code), then you know that you are sliding the slope of lower productivity and you need to act and going back up the slope usually takes a lot of discipline in the team (that's an extreme example, personally I act much earlier).
Your current idea has some risks associated with it. I like to expand with an example: Usually a code base changes and grows with new features, rarely it gets smaller. When your code base grows and your team grows -> productivity declines (people: communication overhead, technology: overall more complex/bigger system, probably many more factors). In the first weeks you might deliver very fast without tests but in the future that is not given. Let's assume that you and your team are unicorns and will produce perfect code all the time. Your productivity declines naturally by having a bigger system and more people. In the case of declining productivity it is very unusual to add workload like writing tests. It might be easier in your project/startup, but usually it's hard to add more workload. The future business will probably be under constant pressure to deliver fast and follow the market.
Now back to the real world, you will probably face a more pronounced slowdown than in the unicorn case. Several risks are coming from your decision, if you think you can manage them then try and keep your eyes peeled and learn from every mistake along the way (btw that's always good advice for every part of your journey ;) ).
Another point I like to share: Keep in mind that good tests don't stop bugs, there will be enough bugs even with good tests. Tests help developers/engineers to understand code and assumptions, they help to reduce bugs from being introduced, they help you doing the right design decisions and much more. You can even write strongly unreadable code with a very good rating from SonarQube. Maintainability, readability and change-ability of your code are human related problems and only slightly technology problems.
Thanks for sharing your Toptal experience. I was looking at Toptal as well. I don't feel that I am bringing value to the marketplace of Toptal, maybe I am wrong.
As a Software Developer I am very focused on software quality, good coding practices, maintainability; basically I always try create the best and most maintainable solution, over the fastest hacked mess but done (I know it's black and white and reality is not always that easy).
I don't see many businesses looking for that.
Yes I am considering remote work, I see a only few interesting job positions for remote work.
Sorry, but if it is not asked too much, can you name a few portals (or the main one) on which you compete with "tons of other companies", I am looking on https://remoteok.io/ .
If you like you can link your company website, I like to have a look.
Thank you for your questions, those are really good.
" travel on your personal time, i.e. when you're not working"
Currently I am a software developer working 100% remote. So I travel for personal reasons or professionally (rarely) when I need to go on-site to a customer (of the company which employs me) to fix something or develop a solution.
I really enjoy being location independent and would like to it that way.
The comments about Germany and France coming from the job opportunities which I see online or at recruitment agencies, they are 95% on-site in towns or in different parts of Paris. That is not the type of travelling I am looking forward to.
That's were the idea of an international freelancer comes from:
I assume most well payed jobs need people on-site and mobility comes with a premium. So why not going to awesome destinations?
"when you're not working, but that you would now prefer to travel further afield (more than France and Germany) specifically to work on projects?"
Exactly I like to travel more than just France and Germany. I enjoy mobility/travelling on an international scale. But what I see from the most job positions is that they need people in Paris or in different towns in Germany. I like to avoid that.
"now wish to transition into a more management-consulting focused role instead of programming, i.e. more involved in the business process and strategy end of things and less on the technical side?"
Ideally I like to stay in technology as much as possible. But I like to avoid being a freelancer on Upwork and compete with low paid people from all over the world and getting Upwork type of jobs. I also enjoy a lot working with clients, doing their requirement analysis and getting solutions done rather than writing code.
So I am looking to increase my salary by doing what I enjoy and what I am good at. And I feel like I am hiding behind my computer just looking for "programming jobs". The point is I wish to keep my independent lifestyle and deliver the most value which I can possibly deliver.