Q01How long does it take to build a Solana sniper bot?
It depends on what surrounds the bot. A single-strategy engine for one venue, running on infrastructure you already have, is a matter of weeks. A product with user wallets, fees, an interface and its own nodes is a matter of months. The buy transaction is the small part. Most of the time goes into the data path, landing transactions under load, and the cases where something fails halfway.
Q02Do I need my own node?
For anything that competes on timing, yes, or at least dedicated access. Shared public RPC endpoints are rate-limited, and you see events later than competitors streaming from their own hardware. For a copy-trade bot with relaxed timing, a paid gRPC provider can be enough to start. I can tell you which case you are in once I see the strategy.
Q03Can you guarantee the bot will be profitable, or always land first?
No, and be careful with anyone who does. Speed depends on your hardware, where it sits relative to the current leader, your fee strategy, and what competitors do in the same slot. I make the system as fast as its infrastructure allows and show you the measurements. Profit depends on the strategy, and the strategy is yours.
Q04What is Jito, and do I need it?
Jito runs a block engine that accepts bundles: groups of transactions that land together and in order, or not at all, with a tip paid for inclusion. For sniping and anything where ordering matters, it is usually part of the send path. I set the tip strategy per trade, because overpaying on every transaction eats the edge.
Q05What stack do you build trading bots in?
TypeScript on Node.js and NestJS, gRPC for market data, Redis for hot state, PostgreSQL for records, Docker on Linux, and bare metal where latency matters.