austin-starks

How Claude Opus 4.7 rebuilt the data-loading pipeline in my backtesting engine.

Hi HN, a friend submitted this.

Here's the short version:

I was recently fired from my SWE job at Coinbase. When I joined, I fully disclosed a side project I'd been building for 5 years, an algorithmic trading platform called NexusTrade. It was on my resume, discussed in interviews, and disclosed in writing before my start date. HR cleared it.

Months later, Coinbase launched their own AI advisory product (Coinbase Advisor). Their compliance team then retroactively declared my solo project a "material competitor" and gave me 30 days to shut it down, sell it, or resign. When I asked for severance instead, since they were effectively forcing me out over something I disclosed on day zero, I was immediately suspended for "conduct concerns" and fired a week later.

On the technical side: NexusTrade is a MERN stack with a Rust backtesting engine. It has an AI agent (ReAct framework) that can build, backtest, and optimize trading strategies through natural language. Supports stocks, ETFs, crypto, and multi-leg options.

I'm mostly interested in hearing from anyone who's navigated a similar IP/compliance situation as a developer with a side project. What did you do? Happy to answer any questions.

Interesting application of AI outside of development. Unfortunately super expensive right now, but has the potential to be a LOT cheaper with dedicated hardware. What do y'all think?

TL;DR: Use LLMs to analyze unstructured data, use the insights to create trading strategies. Leetcode ez

TL;DR: I am a solo founder building an AI trading platform with more faith in myself than I probably should have. So much faith that I'm willing to publicly embarrass myself by sharing everything with the world.

Here's how you can hold me accountable.