# Kai Tran

![Kai Tran](/resources/cognition/portraits/kai-tran.webp)

Applied AI Engineer @ Cognition | AI Software Engineer @ Valsoft | OSS Maintainer  
Cognition  
Calgary, Alberta, Canada

## At Cognition

- Role: Applied AI Engineer (Evals) (Engineering)
- Joined: Jan 2026
- How they joined: Directly
- Before Cognition: Lead Software Engineer, AgentKit

## Identity
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaitranntt
- GitHub: https://github.com/kaitranntt
- Website: https://kaitran.ca/
- Domain: cognition.ai

## Notes
- Quoted word for word from his 2026-10-28 LinkedIn post resharing the FrontierCode 2.0 launch: "Really grateful to be part of the FrontierCode 2.0 release alongside such an incredible team. 🙏.

Thanks to Cognition and everyone behind the tasks, audits, and reviews!" (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kaitranntt_today-were-releasing-frontiercode-20-our-activity-7521207137923145728-Sma5)
- Kai is credited by name ("Kai (Tam Nhu) Tran") in the acknowledgements of Cognition's FrontierCode 2.0 benchmark post, in a list of contributors. (https://cognition.com/blog/frontier-code-2.0)
- His own site describes the Cognition work as "Applied AI Engineer (Evals), Cognition Labs, 2026 - Present": authoring repository-grounded evaluation tasks and maintainer rubrics, designing programmatic and LLM-based grading criteria across architecture, correctness, instruction-following and code quality, and evaluating Devin, Claude and GPT against real open-source PRs for mergeability. (https://kaitran.ca/)
- He created and maintains CCS (Claude Code Switch, kaitranntt/ccs), a CLI for switching between Claude accounts, Gemini, Copilot and OpenRouter through an OAuth proxy. Repo created 2025-11-01; the GitHub API shows about 2,894 stars and 276 forks, with Kai as the top contributor (3,551 commits). (https://github.com/kaitranntt/ccs)
- FrontierCode (v1 launched 2026-06-08) is Cognition's benchmark for whether a maintainer would actually merge an AI-written PR; tasks are built by 20+ open-source maintainers spending 40+ hours per task. (https://cognition.com/blog/frontier-code)
- He is a core contributor to GoClaw (nextlevelbuilder/goclaw), "OpenClaw rebuilt in Go" with multi-tenant isolation, about 3,699 stars and 1,082 forks per the GitHub API (repo created 2026-02-22). He calls it "OpenClaw, but better" in a post. (https://github.com/nextlevelbuilder/goclaw)
- His LinkedIn work history lists both "Applied AI Engineer (Evals) at Cognition (2026)" and "Applied AI Engineer at micro1 (2026)", and his site says he worked "as Applied AI Engineer with micro1 and Cognition". This is an inference, not confirmed. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaitranntt)
- Lead Software Engineer at AgentKit (Nov 2025 - Aug 2026): his site says he architected the core platform and workflow engine of AgentKit, which it calls a commercial multi-agent AI development platform with 20+ workflow primitives. The site shows it with a ClaudeKit image, and his posts mention contributing to ClaudeKit. (https://kaitran.ca/)
- He holds the Cognition evals role at the same time as an AI Software Engineer job at Valsoft Corporation (since May 2026), building AI-enabled software for medical-affairs and information-request (IRMS) products in regulated pharma workflows. (https://kaitran.ca/)
- CCS launch post (2025-11-04): "AI-assisted coding shouldn't stop when your rate limits do." He built CCS so he could switch automatically between Claude Code, GLM 4.6 and Sonnet 4.5 when he hit API limits. (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kaitranntt_ai-developertools-opensource-activity-7391585162641420289-DuGo)
- At Orangead he was Software Engineer (Sep 2023 - Oct 2025): GenAI/RAG document Q&A, FastAPI services on AWS at 99.99% uptime with 38% lower compute cost, and YOLO + OpenCV vision pipelines cutting inference latency 80% on 28 edge devices. Before that he was Software Engineer (Jan-Sep 2023) and Blockchain Architect (May-Dec 2022) there, writing Solidity smart contracts. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaitranntt)
- Public headline says "Applied AI Engineer @ Cognition | AI Software Engineer @ Valsoft | OSS Maintainer". (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaitranntt)
- 2026-04-23 self-portrait post: "conducting a small army of AI agents"; "Building CCS, 2k+ ★ and counting. Contributing to ClaudeKit and GoClaw (OpenClaw, but better).". (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kaitranntt_drew-myself-the-way-my-life-actually-looks-activity-7452932516186832896-yZ8H)
- 2025-11-10 post and LinkedIn article "I Built Something for Myself. 5 Days Later, Developers..." tell the story of CCS growing organically from a personal workflow fix. CCS has been his main public calling card since. (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kaitranntt_what-happens-when-a-solo-developer-solves-activity-7393732756205105152-t1rd)
- Cognition signed a deal to acquire Windsurf, the agentic IDE, in July 2025, days after Google DeepMind hired Windsurf's CEO. Kai joined Cognition in 2026 and has no Windsurf role in his history. (https://cognition.com/blog/windsurf)
- Portfolio: kaitran.ca · GitHub: github.com/kaitranntt.

Building production AI systems and developer tools that people actually use.

→ Applied AI Engineer (Evals) @ Cognition Labs · Evaluating frontier coding agents and authoring source-grounded specifications and grading rubrics
→ AI Software Engineer @ Valsoft Corporation · Developing AI-enabled software for regulated medical affairs and pharmaceutical workflows
→ Lead Software Engineer @ AgentKit · Architected agent orchestration, backend ser; this comes from the profile summary and preserves the person's own positioning. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaitranntt)
- First listed role: Software Developer at OODA Technologies (Jan-Apr 2022), building Kafka microservices and Terraform/Docker deployment for data-analytics systems serving enterprise and government clients. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaitranntt)
- Previous roles include Applied AI Engineer at micro1; Lead Software Engineer at AgentKit; Software Engineer at Orangead; Blockchain Architect at Orangead; Software Developer at OODA Technologies. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaitranntt)
- His full name is given as Kai (Tam Nhu) Tran on his site, his GitHub profile and Cognition's acknowledgements. He goes by kaitranntt on GitHub and LinkedIn. (https://kaitran.ca/)
- His portfolio also lists a Next.js 15 JobHunt application tracker (open source), edge AI parking and human-tracking computer-vision systems, and an NFT release strategy project. (https://kaitran.ca/)
- Location is Calgary, Alberta, Canada. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaitranntt)
- Based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaitranntt)

## Experience
- Applied AI Engineer (Evals) at Cognition (Oct 2026 - Present): Authoring evaluation specs and grading rubrics for frontier AI coding agents
• Author eval specs for autonomous coding-agent benchmarks on real software-engineering work.
• Design programmatic + LLM-based grading criteria across architecture, correctness, instruction-following, and code-quality dimensions.
• Iterate via PR-driven workflow: rubric hardening, calibration, and multi-run evaluation against frontier model families.
- AI Software Engineer at Valsoft Corporation - Montreal, Quebec, Canada (May 2026 - Present): Developing AI-enabled software for regulated medical affairs and pharmaceutical workflows.
• Develop AI-enabled software for medical affairs and information request management products.
• Support pharmaceutical compliance workflows with reliable, documentation-aware AI features.
• Contribute to specialized vertical-market software within Valsoft's long-term portfolio.
- Open Source Developer at GitHub (Oct 2025 - Present): Building and contributing to open source AI infrastructure tools, used by developers worldwide. 
(not working FOR GitHub)
• CCS (creator + maintainer): LLM CLI proxy unifying Claude, Gemini, Copilot, OpenRouter (300+ models) behind one OAuth layer. 2200+ stars, 190+ forks. TypeScript / Bun.
• GoClaw (core contributor): Multi-tenant AI agent gateway in Go. 8-stage pipeline, pgvector memory, 11+ LLM providers, MCP bridge. 3000+ stars, 800+ forks.
- Applied AI Engineer at micro1 (Jan 2026 - Sep 2026): Evaluating frontier coding agents and authoring grading rubrics for code-generation systems
• Grade autonomous coding agents on real software-engineering tasks
  (architecture decisions, code quality, problem decomposition).
• Author rubrics and evaluation specs for production agent training pipelines.
• Cross-platform agent evaluation across multiple frontier model families.
- Lead Software Engineer at AgentKit (Nov 2025 - Aug 2026): Architected the core platform and workflow engine for AgentKit, establishing the technical foundation and guiding architecture through platform maturity.
• Designed and architected Go and TypeScript platform services powering 20+ workflow primitives, deterministic agent orchestration, and developer APIs across hundreds of active sessions.
• Guided the end-to-end architecture of production RAG systems (PostgreSQL/pgvector, Qdrant, Claude orchestration), deployed as Discord bots and embeddable web components.
• Established evaluation standards and structured execution workflows that cut prompt iteration cycles by 60-70%, unlocking 4-5x productivity improvements for developers.
• Drove technical strategy and platform roadmaps with product leadership, transitioning the codebase into a mature, maintainable foundation.
- Software Engineer at Orangead - Montreal, Quebec, Canada (Sep 2023 - Oct 2025): Architected scalable AI and edge-automation systems across cloud and on-device environments.
• Integrated GenAI models for content generation and RAG-powered document Q&A workflows
• Delivered 99.99% uptime across distributed FastAPI services on AWS while cutting compute cost 38%.
• Built real-time vision pipelines with YOLO + OpenCV, reducing inference latency 80% on 28 edge devices.
• Automated CI/CD with Ansible + Terraform, shrinking build time from 3 hours → 11 minutes.
- Software Engineer at Orangead - Montreal, Quebec, Canada (Jan 2023 - Sep 2023): Enhanced multi-platform deployment and automation for large-scale device operations.
• Improved frontend response time 30% using Vue 3 + Vite.
• Cut setup time 40% across Linux, Android, and iOS onboarding pipelines.
• Boosted test coverage 3× and deployment stability via automated CI/CD workflows.
- Blockchain Architect at Orangead - Montreal, Quebec, Canada (May 2022 - Dec 2022): Designed blockchain-integrated AI systems improving scalability and data integrity.
• Engineered Solidity smart contracts ensuring on-chain consistency across 10+ services.
• Built Node.js + React modules reaching 150 TPS and reducing gas cost 22%.
• Prototyped hybrid blockchain-AI architecture guiding future platform strategy.
- Software Developer at OODA Technologies (Jan 2022 - Apr 2022): Contributed to data-intensive analytics systems for enterprise and government clients.
• Built Kafka microservices boosting data throughput 35%.
• Automated cloud deployment with Terraform + Docker, cutting provisioning time 20%.
• Simplified backend operations through MongoDB and dependency-injection refactors.

## Education
- Concordia University - Bachelor of Science - BS, Computer Science: Focus: Software Engineering, DevOps, AI/ML, and Systems Architecture
Completed advanced coursework in Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics and Web Services & Applications.

## Sources
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaitranntt
- https://api.github.com/repos/kaitranntt/ccs
- https://api.github.com/repos/nextlevelbuilder/goclaw
- https://kaitran.ca/
- https://cognition.com/blog/frontier-code-2.0
- https://cognition.com/blog/frontier-code
- https://cognition.com/blog/windsurf
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaitranntt?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAACDr3VcBCBhgtn7_m5fcEbnQ3zE4c_d-u9I
- https://github.com/kaitranntt
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielkahn?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAAAFI_fIBU-05D3_sxJdNHXOeN8NrXCwUOVo
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/cognition-ai-labs/posts
- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-built-something-myself-5-days-later-developers-started-tam-nhu-tran-rtbte
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kaitranntt_today-were-releasing-frontiercode-20-our-activity-7521207137923145728-Sma5
- https://github.com/kaitranntt/ccs
- https://github.com/nextlevelbuilder/goclaw
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kaitranntt_ai-developertools-opensource-activity-7391585162641420289-DuGo
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kaitranntt_drew-myself-the-way-my-life-actually-looks-activity-7452932516186832896-yZ8H
- https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kaitranntt_what-happens-when-a-solo-developer-solves-activity-7393732756205105152-t1rd


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