MT5 Expert Advisor / API Walkthrough — Beginner's Guide for Trading Team (1-2 hr consult)

We're a trading technology team with zero hands-on experience with MetaTrader 5 (MT5) desktop or its Expert Advisor (EA) ecosystem. We're evaluating whether/how to connect our own trading application to MT5, and we need someone who genuinely knows this world to walk us through it from first principles — assume we know nothing about MT5 specifically, even though we're experienced traders/developers in other stacks. What we need covered (live screen-share session, or a recorded walkthrough + Q&A): MT5 desktop terminal basics: layout, Market Watch, order window, navigating symbols How to select and connect to a broker in MT5 (demo vs live, server selection, what "broker product codes" actually mean) Reading tick data: what a tick looks like, bid/ask, spread, tick size vs pip vs point — and how these vary by broker/instrument Placing a manual buy/sell order end-to-end, understanding order types, lot sizing, execution/fill behavior What an Expert Advisor actually is, how it attaches to a chart, how it receives ticks and sends orders (the EA lifecycle: OnTick, OnInit, etc. at a conceptual level) How EAs differ from indicators/scripts, and where MQL5 fits in The available integration paths to connect an EA/MT5 to an external application (e.g., sockets, files, DLL calls, third-party bridges/APIs like MT5 Python API, ZeroMQ bridges, etc.) — pros/cons of each at a high level Common gotchas: broker-specific symbol naming/suffixes, contract specs, demo vs live discrepancies Deliverable: A live 60-90 min screen-share walkthrough (recorded) with our team, treating us as complete beginners, plus willingness to answer follow-up questions afterward. A short written cheat-sheet summarizing key terms/concepts is a bonus but not required. Ideal candidate: Hands-on MT5 experience (trading and/or EA development in MQL5) Has connected MT5 to external systems before (bridge/API work) Good at explaining things simply — this is a "villager's guide," not a deep architecture review Available for a live call in the next 1-2 weeks Budget: Whats your quote? Duration: Short-term, single session (with potential for follow-on work if it goes well)