Sure, I lost about 10k with long options, and then made a pause of more than a year to study the options field throughly.
Now I'm coming back, this time specialised on short trading...
I can also claim that I'm a quant, although I learned everything myself without any mentor or attending any courses, but of course with the help of some literature and the internet.
I'm good in maths/statistics/probability and of course programming (C++).
I'm a Linux guy, working much in the console as opposed to GUI... Ie. I'm more a low-level guy...
Of course in the past I've also worked many years under Window environment. But the last Windows OS I have installed here is XP (installed inside VirtualBox in Linux).
To hard to go into it in detail on a post, but automated trading with options is much different than equities. You should learn about the pro-customer status that comes with entering over 390/orders per day. For short options, you will need an PM account which requires more capital and experience. You should learn how margin works with PM and how each clearing broker has their own restrictions on naked options.
Good luck to you.
