# Chris Diaz

![Chris Diaz](/resources/cognition/portraits/chris-diaz.webp)

Forward deployed engineer; founding DE at Codeium/Windsurf, DE team lead at Cognition, built FDE at Cursor  
SpaceX Super Intelligence  
Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area

## At Cognition

- Role: Former Deployed Engineering Team Lead (Engineering)
- Joined: Jul 2024
- How they joined: With Windsurf (https://www.autumn.ai/resources/cognition/acquisitions/windsurf)
- Before Windsurf: Senior Solutions Engineer, LaunchDarkly
- Now: SpaceX Super Intelligence (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgroks)
- Overlapped before Cognition with other Cognition people at: Codeium (Windsurf); Texas State University; VMware (https://www.autumn.ai/resources/cognition/worked-together)

## Identity
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgroks
- GitHub: https://github.com/chrisgroks

## Notes
- Since Aug 2026 lists Forward Deployed Engineering at SpaceX Super Intelligence with the note "SpaceX acquired Cursor!", meaning he has now moved through two acquisitions (Windsurf to Cognition, Cursor to SpaceX) in about a year. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgroks)
- Became Deployed Engineering Team Lead at Cognition in Aug 2025 after the acquisition; role description: "Cognition acquired Windsurf!\n\nI lead a team of DEs supporting EMEA and the US East Coast." He left in Dec 2025, so the lead role lasted about five months post-merger. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgroks)
- Joined Cursor in Feb 2026 to build its FDE function (role description: "Building FDE at Cursor!"); his GitHub work account "chrisatcursor" lists Anysphere and links back to in/chrisgroks. (https://github.com/chrisatcursor)
- Joined Codeium (later renamed Windsurf) as a founding Deployed Engineer in July 2024; his announcement post reads: "This week I'm starting at Codeium! I'm super excited to be here, as we're changing the game by empowering software developers to all become 10x developers." (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chrisgroks_ai-developer-codeium-activity-7221510964339253248-DBuO)
- LinkedIn role description for Windsurf: "I was a founding Deployed Engineer at Windsurf ... I was around since the early days when we were Codeium, and I love working at the intersection of engineering and sales." (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgroks)
- Runs Cursor's FDE accreditation coaching: an accredited engineer thanked "the team at Cursor and Chris Diaz for the wonderful courseware and coaching on the FDE knowledge." (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jaykumarpshah_cursor-ai-forward-deployed-engineer-accreditation-activity-7500274329532674048-cDEH)
- After Cognition, he was an a16z FDE Fellow (2026), part of the a16z forward deployed engineer fellowship program announced by Erik Torenberg, David Booth and Katie Schwartz on May 28, 2026. (https://www.a16z.news/p/introducing-the-a16z-fde-fellowship)
- Before the Cognition deal, Windsurf sales leadership singled him out: "Can't have epic AEs without epic DEs -- shoutout to Abhay A., Vanessa Salas, Alexander Baker, Satwik Bebortha, Chris Diaz, and Rohan Ramani, on incredible performances in our largest deals.". (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/grahammoreno_these-are-starting-to-feel-redundant-but-activity-7323778147684917248-sL_A)
- Another participant credited "Chris Diaz and Cursor for making the workshop happen" for the Cursor AI Forward Deployed Engineer Accreditation. (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tim-nazar_ive-earned-the-cursor-ai-forward-deployed-activity-7507864579612385280-0G8K)
- Used the newly launched Windsurf IDE as a demo of his own: "In just a few minutes, I used our new Windsurf IDE 🏄 to make this scheduling page!" while promoting Codeium at AWS re:Invent 2024. (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chrisgroks_awsreinvent-codeium-aifordevelopers-activity-7265108094341267456-ZP6p)
- Public headline says "Forward Deployed Engineer at SpaceXSI". (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgroks)
- Azure Bicep maintainers flagged "The unofficial Bicep OpenVSX (Cursor, Windsurf)" listing, noting "It looks like this was published from a fork of this repo under https://github.com/chrisgroks/bicep." So his republishing work drew a response from upstream maintainers. (https://github.com/Azure/bicep/issues/18824, https://github.com/chrisgroks/bicep)
- Posted on the Cursor 3 launch: "Love a clean UI, and a single pane of ....🪟 Cursor 3 + Glass dropped today. All my agents in one place; Should decrease the amount of times I forget about a minimized agent! #cursor" (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7445652696482660352-4D4Q)
- At a Cursor post-sales event, attendees gave a "Special shoutout to Chris Diaz who spent time explaining" the forward deployed engineer role. (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tjkennedy1_forward-deployed-engineering-at-cursor-activity-7488226265389436928-8ynx)
- At LaunchDarkly (Mar 2021 to Jul 2024) he was a Solutions Engineer and then Senior Solutions Engineer; the company blog featured "LaunchDarkly's Senior Solutions Engineer, Chris Diaz" on release management and scaling. (https://launchdarkly.com/blog/release-management-lessons/)
- At VMware (2019-2021) he started as SMB presales and then became a presales specialist for the Avi Networks Load Balancer, which VMware had acquired, covering on-prem, hybrid and multi-cloud deployments. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgroks)
- I help engineering teams go from evaluating agentic coding tools to shipping with them, closing the gap between what AI-powered development can do and what teams are actually getting out of it; this comes from the profile summary and preserves the person's own positioning. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgroks)
- Publishes under the chrisgroks namespace on Open VSX (e.g. "C# Extension" chrisgroks.csharpextension); Open VSX labels the account as not a verified publisher of that namespace. (https://open-vsx.org/namespace/chrisgroks)
- MathWorks issue #322 "Add suport for other VSCode based editor" references his fork https://github.com/chrisgroks/MATLAB-extension-for-vscode as a community path to MATLAB support in VS Code forks. (https://github.com/mathworks/MATLAB-extension-for-vscode/issues/322, https://github.com/chrisgroks/MATLAB-extension-for-vscode)
- Commented on Exafunction/codeium issue #195 ("Unable to open global_rules.md") on May 28, 2025, supporting Windsurf users on GitHub. (https://github.com/Exafunction/codeium/issues/195)
- Recruited for Codeium's support team in Nov 2024: "Mike S. is building out our support team in Mountain View! Let me know if you're interested in learning more about the cool things in AI we're doing." (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chrisgroks_ai-support-engineer-activity-7263301587702288386-0-W_)
- Promoted Aug 2022: "I've been promoted to Senior Solutions Engineer here LaunchDarkly! I stand on the shoulder's of giants, and love my SE team." (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chrisgroks_ive-been-promoted-to-senior-solutions-engineer-activity-6963875784885223425-YN0l)
- Previous roles include a16z FDE Fellow at Andreessen Horowitz; Deployed Engineering Team Lead at Cognition; Deployed Engineer at Windsurf; Senior Solutions Engineer at LaunchDarkly; Solutions Engineer at LaunchDarkly; Solutions Engineer at VMware; MPD Field Supervisor at Weatherford. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgroks)
- Education history includes Bachelor of Science, Computer Science, Texas State University. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgroks)
- Commented on adobe/react-spectrum issue #8722 (react-aria-components Select performance), Nov 24, 2025, about the fix: "A new deferCollectionRendering prop has b[een added]". (https://github.com/adobe/react-spectrum/issues/8722)
- Location is Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgroks)

## Experience
- Forward Deployed Engineering at SpaceX Super Intelligence - Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area (Aug 2026 - Present): SpaceX acquired Cursor!
- Forward Deployed Engineering at Cursor - Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area (Feb 2026 - Present): Building FDE at Cursor!
- a16z FDE Fellow at Andreessen Horowitz (Jan 2026 - Jan 2026)
- Deployed Engineering Team Lead at Cognition - Austin, TX (Aug 2025 - Dec 2025): Cognition acquired Windsurf!

I lead a team of DEs supporting EMEA and the US East Coast.
- Deployed Engineer at Windsurf - Austin, TX (Jul 2024 - Aug 2025): I was a founding Deployed Engineer at Windsurf, where I helped customers get the most out of our tech and make sure things run smoothly on the ground. I was around since the early days when we were Codeium, and I love working at the intersection of engineering and sales—especially when it comes to bringing AI agents and LLM-powered workflows into the real world.
- Senior Solutions Engineer at LaunchDarkly - Austin, Texas, United States (Aug 2022 - Jul 2024)
- Solutions Engineer at LaunchDarkly - Austin, TX (Mar 2021 - Aug 2022): I supported large enterprise accounts in central Texas with a focus on developer tooling, helping companies release software sooner and safer.
- Solutions Engineer at VMware (Feb 2020 - Mar 2021): I supported the Avi Networks Load Balancer as a presales specialist, supporting MM customers to define and deploy on-prem, hybrid, and multi cloud solutions.
- Solutions Engineer at VMware - Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area (Jul 2019 - Feb 2020): I supported SMB customers as a presales resource for the core VMware products.
- MPD Field Supervisor at Weatherford - Houston- International (Sep 2013 - Oct 2016): Before I started working in Software and AI, I worked in drilling on oil rigs!
- Aviation Electronics at US Navy - Virginia Beach, Virginia (Sep 2008 - Sep 2013): This is where my career began. I was enlisted in the US Navy for 5 years as an Aviation Electronics Technician, reaching the E5, Second Class Petty Officer rank. I was also a certified Plane Captain, deployed on the USS Truman, and after Bootcamp and Training stationed at NAS Oceana part of VFA 105, The Gunslingers.

## Education
- Texas State University - Bachelor of Science, Computer Science - (Jan 2019): Minor in Applied Mathematics

## Sources
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgroks
- https://github.com/chrisatcursor
- https://github.com/chrisgroks
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jaykumarpshah_cursor-ai-forward-deployed-engineer-accreditation-activity-7500274329532674048-cDEH
- https://www.a16z.news/p/introducing-the-a16z-fde-fellowship
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chrisgroks_ai-developer-codeium-activity-7221510964339253248-DBuO
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chrisgroks_awsreinvent-codeium-aifordevelopers-activity-7265108094341267456-ZP6p
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chrisgroks_ai-support-engineer-activity-7263301587702288386-0-W_
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chrisgroks_ive-been-promoted-to-senior-solutions-engineer-activity-6963875784885223425-YN0l
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chrisgroks_careers-launchdarkly-activity-6872264439215796224-N7dR?trk=public_profile_like_view
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/grahammoreno_these-are-starting-to-feel-redundant-but-activity-7323778147684917248-sL_A
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tjkennedy1_forward-deployed-engineering-at-cursor-activity-7488226265389436928-8ynx
- https://launchdarkly.com/blog/release-management-lessons/
- https://open-vsx.org/namespace/chrisgroks
- https://github.com/Azure/bicep/issues/18824
- https://github.com/mathworks/MATLAB-extension-for-vscode/issues/322
- https://github.com/adobe/react-spectrum/issues/8722
- https://github.com/Exafunction/codeium/issues/195
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tim-nazar_ive-earned-the-cursor-ai-forward-deployed-activity-7507864579612385280-0G8K
- https://github.com/chrisgroks?tab=repositories
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgroks?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAABBE_c0BUZmZEQSByXxAYHhRkGi5-pau8fM
- https://github.com/chrisgroks/bicep
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7445652696482660352-4D4Q
- https://github.com/chrisgroks/MATLAB-extension-for-vscode


Researched with Autumn (https://www.autumn.ai) from public sources. Updated 2026-11-04. Profile: https://www.autumn.ai/resources/cognition/people/chris-diaz · Everyone at Cognition: https://www.autumn.ai/resources/cognition/people