I'm a software engineer and I developed trading algorithms just by playing around and visualizing data. Once you have historical data, technical indicators and a simple back tester, you can test some trading strategies and get feedback quickly. Graphing the output of your tests to analyze the annual return over time also helps a lot to design algorithms.

I have limited financial knowledge but I would recommend reading about technical analysis and technical indicators (This one is short and sweet https://www.investopedia.com/university/technical/) just so you can grasp the basics.