Blog
Engineering notes, product updates, and the story behind what we build.
Why I Started Helping SaaS Teams Fix Their Marketing Data
After building trading data pipelines that process millions of trades, I realized the same engineering solves a problem most SaaS founders deal with every day: figuring out which marketing dollars actually work.
Position5 Is Now a Data Engineering Consultancy
Position5 is growing from a software studio into data engineering consulting. Here's why, what it means for the products, and what's next.
Sigil: Iterating on Speed and Scale
How I optimized Sigil's data processing pipeline to handle hundreds of trading strategies efficiently, and what 'fast enough' actually means for iteration speed.
Sigil: Born from Arcana
Why I separated Sigil from Arcana, the stability benefits of decoupling data ingestion from strategy processing, and what Sigil does on its own.
Information Bars, Part 4: Fixing Information Bars, Guardrails, Tuning, and Results
How I stabilized Arcana's information-driven bars with E[T] guardrails, EWMA tuning, and target overcompensation. From 1.5 bars/day to a healthy range.
OpenTN is Live: Campaign Finance Data for Every Tennessean
Position5 launches OpenTN, a free platform that makes Tennessee campaign finance data searchable, scoreable, and actually understandable. Follow the money.
Information Bars, Part 3: When Smart Math Meets Real Markets
The information-driven bars were mathematically perfect but practically broken. The culprit: an unstable equilibrium hiding in the random walk dynamics of balanced markets.
Information Bars, Part 2: The Math Behind Imbalance Bars
A step-by-step walkthrough of how tick, volume, and dollar imbalance bars work, plus their cousin, run bars. No hand-waving.
Information Bars, Part 1: Why Standard Market Data Falls Short
Every trading chart you've ever seen uses time bars. They're intuitive, universal, and they're hiding information from you. Here's why, and what I'm doing about it in Arcana.
Quinn FAQ is Live: Our First WordPress Plugin Hits the Market
Quinn FAQ officially launched today on WordPress.org. A thank you to the WordPress community, what we learned building our first plugin, and how you can get a free annual license.
Arcana: From Raw Data to Real-Time Decision Making
How Arcana handles massive data ingestion with fault tolerance, and what comes next as we prepare data for Position5's sequential phase, Sigil.
The Indie Developer's Moment
Why now is the best time to be an independent developer, and what Position5 is building to prove it.
The Crossroads: Engineering, Community, and Betting on Myself
Reflections on choosing the indie developer path, engineering decisions, community building, and the bet on doing things your own way.
Arcana's First Overnight Run: 83 Million Trades and Counting
What we learned when Arcana processed its first large overnight batch, 83 million trades from the Coinbase exchange.
Nova-Core: Our Licensing and Distribution Engine
A look inside Nova-Core, the private backend platform powering Position5's software licensing, billing, and distribution.
Quinn FAQ: From Concept to WordPress.org in One Week
How we built QuinnFAQ from idea to WordPress.org submission in seven days, the decisions, tradeoffs, and lessons from shipping fast.