I went with a pool builder - we had never been involved in building a pool before. Now, after the fact, I think we would have managed the build better by doing it ourselves...
Fortunately our pool turned out great and the office people, the salesman, and most everyone we dealt with at the builder were great.
However, being in Santa Cruz meant we were a long drive for all of the subs - so I think we kind of got the bad end of scheduling and our delays were a bit longer than seemed necessary. I didn't feel like we could get quick response from sub to sub as they had to fit us in and get over to this are.
I would ask the subs if they will work with an Owner Builder - if not they could steer you towards someone who might. There are a few threads on here I have seen that were O/B in the last year (I remember a couple in the Sacramento area).