Research

(Ching-Yuan) Alex Lin

“Research @ Cognition”

LinkedInGitHub
Joined
Jul 2026
How they joined
Directly
Before Cognition
Hudson River TradingFPGA Engineer
Status
Current
Overlapped before Cognition
Sources1linkedin.com2linkedin.com

Autumn profile

Researched with Autumn · 2026-11-04
Details
LocationNew York City Metropolitan Area
Company sitecognition.ai
LanguagesChinese, English
UniversityStanford University, Purdue University
Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC)Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA)Computer SecuritySystemVerilogPython (Programming Language)C++JavaC (Programming Language)GitLinuxSoftware DevelopmentWeb DevelopmentAndroid Development
Notes
  • Cognition colleague Silas Alberti posted that "it's a blast to work with Sampriti & Alex on research at Cognition" after their team perfect blue won DEF CON CTF.Aug 13, 2026
  • Cognition's official X account: "Congratulations to Cognition engineers @sampriti0 and Alex Lin for winning DEF CON CTF!" (210 likes), about a month after he joined.Aug 12, 2026
  • GitHub account VoidMercy (display name Alex Lin, 119 followers) is a member of the perfectblue organization, matching the CTF team behind his DEF CON win, and hosts FPGA work matching his HRT/Apple hardware career.2026
  • Open-source: Lattice-ECP5-Bitstream-Decompiler, a bitstream-to-Verilog decompiler for the Lattice ECP5 FPGA chip, showing reverse-engineering at the hardware layer before his FPGA job at HRT.
  • The 2026 DEF CON CTF Finals were won by the joint team Blue Water, per GMO Internet Group's release; perfect blue (Alex's team) played as part of that coalition.Aug 14, 2026GMO Internet Group's White-Hat Hackers Help Blue Water Take 1st Place in the World at DEF CON 34 CTF Finals
  • ASIC GPU Design Engineer at Apple in Cupertino (Jan 2022-Mar 2024) after an ASIC GPU Design internship there in summer 2021, overlapping his Stanford MS in Electrical Engineering (2022-2024).Jan 2022
  • Public headline says "Research @ Cognition".
  • Stanford coursework repos on his GitHub include CS-348K 'Ray tracing gaussian splats' (3 stars, 2024), a CS231A final project, and CS-257 bit-vector decision procedure using DPLL(T), bit-blasting and ILP (2023), showing a turn toward graphics/GPU compute and formal methods during his MS.May 2024
  • Contributed challenges to perfect blue's pbCTF 2021 (repo is C++/Verilog heavy).2021
  • Authored perfect blue's solve script for the Hack-A-Sat 2020 Quals 'Launch Link' challenge (space/satellite security CTF).2020
  • Purdue professor Antonio Bianchi's CV lists 'Alex Lin (CS) - Fall 2020' among mentored students; this lines up with his 2020 Systems Security Lab undergraduate research role at Purdue.2020
  • Cognition signed a definitive agreement to acquire Windsurf in July 2025 (IP, product, trademark and brand), a year before Alex joined; Windsurf/Devin Desktop is now part of the Cognition product line he works within.Jul 14, 2025

People they worked with before

Ben PanStanford UniversityBrandon CamhiStanford UniversityErik RoziStanford UniversityJake RachleffStanford UniversityJoe LiStanford UniversityJoseph ZhangAppleJoshua KooStanford UniversityKatie ChengStanford UniversityMax LohmannAppleMoritz StephanStanford UniversityRay WangAppleSamyok NepalStanford University

More from Research

Anhang ZhuSpecial ProjectsAllen LiuResearcherCarlo BaronioResearch LeadSampriti PandaResearcher (research & infra)Mehmet Deniz BirlikciResearchTill KernSpecial ProjectsJay GrantResearch OperationsFermi MaResearcher
Everyone at Cognition →

Updated 2026-11-04 · 14 sources · Researched by Autumn · Research anyone like this

Compiled from public sources by Autumn · Updated 2026-11-04

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