Python Developer for U.S. Stock Premarket Scanner – Alpaca API & Email Alerts

I am looking for an experienced Python developer to complete and improve an existing U.S. stock market scanner. I already have Python code using the Alpaca API, but I need an experienced developer to review, fix, test, and make the scanner reliable. This is NOT an automated trading bot and I do NOT need AI-generated buy/sell signals or stock-price predictions. The scanner's purpose is only to find stocks that meet my specific criteria and notify me by email. I will make all trading decisions myself. What I Need The scanner should: *Scan U.S. listed stocks using the Alpaca API. *Focus primarily on legitimate NYSE/NASDAQ stocks. *Exclude OTC securities, warrants, rights, SPAC-related instruments when appropriate, and other unsuitable securities. *Avoid illiquid or abnormal stocks such as EURK that may technically show a large percentage gap but have extremely poor trading volume/liquidity. *Allow configurable filters such as minimum stock price, market capitalization/liquidity, gap percentage, volume, and exchange. *Correctly retrieve and analyze after-hours and premarket data. *Compare the current/premarket price with the correct previous regular-session close. *Calculate premarket/after-hours volume correctly. *Identify stocks with meaningful gap-up movement. *Retrieve recent news/catalysts when available. *Eventually support additional technical/pattern filters based on my trading strategy. *Be structured so scanner criteria can easily be changed later. Email Alerts I need automatic email notifications when a stock meets the required scanner conditions. The email should include information such as: *Ticker symbol *Current/premarket price *Previous close *Gap percentage *Premarket volume *Relevant news/catalyst when available *Other scanner criteria that triggered the alert The system should avoid sending repeated duplicate emails for the same stock unless a meaningful new condition occurs. Automation The final scanner should be capable of running automatically during the required U.S. market/premarket hours without me manually starting the Python script every time. Please recommend the best reliable and inexpensive solution for continuous operation, such as my Windows PC, VPS/cloud server, or another appropriate setup. Current Technology The existing project currently uses: *Python *Alpaca API *Alpaca Market Data *IEX data feed *Stock historical/minute-bar data *News API functionality I currently have working API credentials and some existing scanner code. The developer should work with and improve the existing project rather than unnecessarily rebuilding everything from scratch. Important I am looking for someone with actual experience in: *Python *Stock market APIs *Alpaca API *Premarket/after-hours market data *Market-data filtering *REST APIs *Automated email alerts *Debugging existing Python applications Experience building stock scanners, market-data applications, or trading tools is strongly preferred. I do not need someone to develop a trading strategy for me. I already have my own trading rules. First Milestone The first milestone should be relatively simple: 1- Review my existing code. 2- Fix the current scanner/data issues. 3- Correctly retrieve premarket and after-hours data. 4- Filter out unsuitable/illiquid securities such as EURK. 5- Verify the scanner against several known stocks. 6- Add reliable email alerts. 7- Make the scanner run automatically. 8- Document how I can start, stop, and modify it. After this is working correctly, we can discuss adding my more advanced scanner conditions. Thank you!