- Joined Cognition
- Jul 2025
- How they joined
- With Windsurf
- Before Cognition
- Grafana LabsRegional Director, Enterprise & Strategic Sales - Great Lakes US
- Status
- Current
“Most of the conversation centered around the founders & engineers heading to Google. I knew the bigger story was about those of us who stayed... … And yes, operating with a massive chip on your shoulder is effective. Winning is the best revenge.”
- Joined Codeium (later Windsurf) in August 2024 as Head of Sales for Central, East and EMEA, was promoted in February 2025 to Regional Vice President of Sales for Central, East, EMEA and LATAM, and in February 2026 became Cognition's VP of Banking, Financial Services and Insurance.Feb 2026
- Describes himself as 'an early employee of Codeium that eventually became @windsurf'; he wrote this when Cognition launched Devin Desktop, the product that replaced the Windsurf editor.Jun 3, 2026I was an early employee of Codeium that eventually became @windsurf. It is sad to say goodbye but Devin Desktop is the future this space needs.
- Led the Cognition team on the Fiserv partnership to bring Devin into Fiserv's engineering and product organization, and thanked Fiserv executives Dhivya Suryadevara and Srini Krish for 'the trust and shared ambition'.May 28, 2026My team has loved partnering with Fiserv to help shape the future of its engineering and product organization. Huge thank you to Dhivya Suryadevara and Srini Krish for the trust and shared ambition. What stands out most is Fiserv’s willingness to lean into AI not as a side initiative, but as a core strategy for modernizing banking technology, accelerating product delivery, and rethinking how engineering teams operate at scale. That kind of vision is what leadership in the AI era looks like.
- Cognition VP role description: 'Responsible for leading and building Cognition's pursuits across Banking, Financial Services, & Insurance institutions.' Based in Austin, Texas.Feb 2026
- Announced Aman Thind joining the Cognition FSI team to grow the largest customers across the vertical.Jul 28, 2026A massive addition to the Cognition FSI team. I am very excited to partner with Aman Thind on growing our largest customers across the vertical.
- Spent a week in Europe with some of Cognition's largest banking customers and concluded that 'the market is moving beyond AI adoption and into value realization', pointing to Ryan Bai's post on measuring Devin outcomes. Outcome measurement looks like the core of his banking pitch.Jun 12, 2026After spending the week in Europe with some of our largest banking customers, one thing is clear: the market is moving beyond AI adoption and into value realization. Last year, the question was “How do we deploy AI?” Today, it’s “What outcomes are we getting?” @ryanbai’s latest post outlines how we think about measuring and delivering results with @DevinAI at @cognition.
- Promoted Cognition's $10M productivity guarantee for clients: 'AI costs are through the roof and CXO's don't know what the results truly are.'.Jun 4, 2026We at Cognition are so confident in our AI products that we are putting up a $10M productivity guarantee for our clients. AI costs are through the roof and CXO's don't know what the results truly are. We are going to stand by our results and we hope the industry follows suit. Note below from Scott Wu:
- Spoke with colleague Nicholas W. at AHEAD's 2nd Annual Financial Services AI Summit at BNY headquarters in New York, on how large banks use Devin to build, ship and secure software, including a keynote on application security after the Mythos vulnerabilities.Jun 3, 2026Excited to take the stage at AHEAD's 2nd Annual Financial Services AI Summit at BNY headquarters in New York later today. Nicholas W. and I will be sharing how some of the world's largest banks are leveraging Devin AI to transform how they build, ship, and secure software - including a keynote on how Cognition is redefining application security in the wake of recent Mythos vulnerabilities. The future of AI in financial services isn't theoretical. It's happening now. #AI #FinancialServices #Banking #Cognition #Devin #CyberSecurity #AISummit
- Cognition acquired Windsurf in July 2025, days after Windsurf lost its CEO and other staff to Google, and was valued at $10.2B two months later. That acquisition is how he became a Cognition employee.Sep 8, 2025
- Celebrated Cognition reaching '$1B in annualized revenue. Less than two years after signing our first customer.'Sep 25, 2026$1B in annualized revenue. Less than two years after signing our first customer. Hard to put into words how grateful I am to our customers, partners, and everyone who has believed in us along the way. Milestones like this only happen because of trust. Customers trusting us with their most important problems, and an incredible team at Cognition relentlessly delivering for them. We’re just getting started. The ambition from here is even bigger.
- A Cognition colleague's post on the Fiserv deal credits 'team Cognition, Russell Kaplan Sandeep Shah' for leadership, alongside Charles Wagener and Achal Channarasappa.May 2026
- Guest on Humans in AI podcast S4 E2, 'Inside the Cognition & Windsurf Merger: Sandeep Shah on AI, GPUs & the Future of Sales', covering the merger and his path from finance to sales.Oct 2025
Responsible for leading and building Cognition's pursuits across Banking, Financial Services, & Insurance institutions.
Responsible for scaling our enterprise & strategic sales organization.
Held responsibility for building and leading Grafana's Great Lakes Enterprise Sales Team.
Held responsibility for building and leading DataRobot's Central US Enterprise Sales Team.
Held responsibility to bring Actifio's solutions to Fortune 100 clients. (Acquired by Google in 2020)
Held responsibility to bring Netrix's solutions to Fortune 500 clients.
The Cisco Partner Sales Academy. This training develops Partner Associate Sales Representatives to become sales leaders in the organizations of top Cisco channel partners in the United States.
Put @DevinAI on call. Devin Oncall investigates alerts and bugs so your engineers can spend more time building. Already handling thousands of alerts daily at some of the world’s largest companies. Your next SRE: https://devin.ai/oncall
After spending the week in Europe with some of our largest banking customers, one thing is clear: the market is moving beyond AI adoption and into value realization. Last year, the question was “How do we deploy AI?” Today, it’s “What outcomes are we getting?” @ryanbai’s latest post outlines how we think about measuring and delivering results with @DevinAI at @cognition.
We at Cognition are so confident in our AI products that we are putting up a $10M productivity guarantee for our clients. AI costs are through the roof and CXO's don't know what the results truly are. We are going to stand by our results and we hope the industry follows suit. Note below from Scott Wu:
Excited to take the stage at AHEAD's 2nd Annual Financial Services AI Summit at BNY headquarters in New York later today. Nicholas W. and I will be sharing how some of the world's largest banks are leveraging Devin AI to transform how they build, ship, and secure software - including a keynote on how Cognition is redefining application security in the wake of recent Mythos vulnerabilities. The future of AI in financial services isn't theoretical. It's happening now. #AI #FinancialServices #Banking #Cognition #Devin #CyberSecurity #AISummit
I was an early employee of Codeium that eventually became @windsurf. It is sad to say goodbye but Devin Desktop is the future this space needs.
My team has loved partnering with Fiserv to help shape the future of its engineering and product organization. Huge thank you to Dhivya Suryadevara and Srini Krish for the trust and shared ambition. What stands out most is Fiserv’s willingness to lean into AI not as a side initiative, but as a core strategy for modernizing banking technology, accelerating product delivery, and rethinking how engineering teams operate at scale. That kind of vision is what leadership in the AI era looks like.
The alert is just the beginning. The real work is figuring out what broke and how to fix it - Meet Devin Oncall. Devin automatically investigates alerts and bugs, helping your team diagnose and resolve production incidents. Already handling thousands of alerts every day for some of the world’s largest companies. Works out of the box with Datadog, Dynatrace, Sentry, and more. More time building. Less time chasing down what broke. Put Devin on call: https://devin.ai/oncall
$1B in annualized revenue. Less than two years after signing our first customer. Hard to put into words how grateful I am to our customers, partners, and everyone who has believed in us along the way. Milestones like this only happen because of trust. Customers trusting us with their most important problems, and an incredible team at Cognition relentlessly delivering for them. We’re just getting started. The ambition from here is even bigger.
A massive addition to the Cognition FSI team. I am very excited to partner with Aman Thind on growing our largest customers across the vertical.
I thought only boomers at banks used @DevinAI? Actually, you are just behind. @mercor knows the power of cloud agents. Time to wake up.
The tech is advancing faster than any of us thought possible. One thing that has become very clear to me... The future is going to be an uncomfortable place for those who lack imagination and who choose negativity over possibility.
