Tips to hire a MT4 programmer

One of the reasons that led me to learn how to program for MT4 in 2007 is that at that time it was very difficult to find a competent, serious MT4 programmer capable of understanding and developing the specifications I demanded. Today the picture has not changed substantially and the question remains equally recurrent: What should I look for before hiring an MT4 programmer?

Q: There are many MT4 programmers out there. What should I look for before hiring one of them?
A: No doubt that hiring an MT4 programmer is a tough decision. Several weeks, months even years behind your trading strategy and now it is the moment of hiring an expert to automate all your hard work. Here are some tips that will help you to take the right choice:

• Search for the internet presence of the MT4 programmer: type the name of the MQL4 programmer in your preferred internet searcher (e.g.: Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) and take a look at related reviews and feedbacks. This will allow you to evaluate his/her reputation, the credited amount of years he/she has been related to MQL4 programming or any other service being offered.
• Check if the MT4 programmer speaks your language: good communication is key to the success of an MQL4 programming project. No matter how well detailed is your project or how skilled is the programmer, if both customer and programmer are not able to communicate properly each other, it will be difficult to get a job successfully completed. Moreover, solving an issue in the program or trying to modify or add new features will be extremely hard and probably at the end, the program will not satisfy your expectations. Doing some questions about the project and its implementation will give you a better vision about communication skills of the MT4 coder and will help you to decide if it is worth to move forward with him/her.
• Take care of your payments: ask the MT4 programmer about what is the payment method he/she uses. Avoid paying using unreliable payment gateways or giving your payment information to unsecured websites.
• Look for actions, not just talks: doubt about those programmers who acclaim developing the cheapest and best MT4 programs with nothing to prove it. Take your time to investigate more about their background and previous jobs before moving up to the next step.
• If not completely sure, start with a small project: if you have not previously work with an MT4 programmer and you want to try his/her service, the best way to verify the quality of the MQL4 programmer is by awarding him/her a small job. This could be a simple Expert Advisor, an Indicator or any other tool that doesn’t compromise your intellectual property and has a small-medium budget to be assigned. Thus, you will be able to check by yourself how much time takes to develop the job, if the MT4 programmer fulfills the agreed deadline, if the communication is good, among other important things. Summarizing, you could verify if the MT4 programmer is trustworthy and if you can give him/her your ideas, your time and your money.