- Joined Cognition
- Apr 2026
- How they joined
- With Havana
- Before Havana
- AirplaneSoftware Engineer
- Olympiads
- IOI silver 2009–2011, bronze 2008IOI 2008BronzeIOI 2009SilverIOI 2010SilverIOI 2011Silver
Overlapped before Cognition
Details
Notes
- Joined Cognition (maker of Devin and Windsurf) as Member of Technical Staff in March 2026 after Cognition acquired Havana, the startup he co-founded as CTO.Mar 2026
- Co-founded Havana (tryhavana.com) in Aug 2023 with CEO Nathan Wangliao; Havana built an AI agent that helps school and university enrollment teams speak with prospective students, and it was acquired by Cognition.Aug 2023
- Tech in Asia and TechNode Global reported Cognition picking Singapore as its APAC hub, with the acquisition of Singapore startup Havana and the integration of Havana's team as part of that entry.Apr 29, 2026
- Current role is Member of Technical Staff at Cognition.
- Anni Cai posted that Nathan and Zhan Xiong are 'building the APAC team' at Cognition and are 'both cracked and genuinely kind'.Apr 3, 2026
- Software Engineer at Airplane (2021-2023), joining as 'Engineer #3' at the Benchmark-backed internal-tools startup that was acquired by Airtable after its Series B, giving him an early-employee view of a venture exit before founding Havana.2021
- Competed at the ICPC World Finals twice for the University of Pennsylvania.2018
- Represented Singapore at the International Olympiad in Informatics four times: Bronze in 2008, Silver in 2009 (rank 49/301), Silver in 2010 (rank 26/297, 685 points) and Silver in 2011 (rank 64/303).Jul 2011
- Havana publicly launched its AI student recruitment platform for higher education in Nov 2025, claiming engagement with 100,000+ prospective students, a 10% conversion lift, and 250+ man-days of manual work saved.Nov 14, 2025
- Software Engineer on the Machine Learning Infrastructure team at self-driving company Nuro (Aug 2018 - Sep 2021), his first full-time role after Penn.Aug 2018
- Trained Singapore's IOI team in C++ and algorithms in June-July 2014; that team went on to win 2 gold medals and 1 silver medal.Jun 2014
- Public headline says "Building Cognition".
Experience
Member of Technical Staff at Cognition
Mar 2026 - Present
CTO & Co-founder at Havana
Aug 2023 - Mar 2026
Havana builds an AI agent that helps enrollment teams in schools speak with prospective students. Acquired by Cognition.
Software Engineer at Airplane
Jan 2021 - Dec 2023
Backed by Benchmark. Joined as Engineer #3, acquired by Airtable after Series B.
Software Engineer at Nuro
Aug 2018 - Sep 2021
Machine Learning Infrastructure team at a self-driving car company.
Software Engineering Intern at Addepar
May 2017 - Aug 2017
Infrastructure team
Software Engineering Intern at Two Sigma
May 2016 - Aug 2016
Trading Engineering - Execution Engineering
Trainer at International Olympiad in Informatics
Jun 2014 - Jul 2014
Trained Singapore’s International Olympiad team in C++ programming and algorithms Team eventually obtained 2 gold medals and 1 silver medal
Education
University of Pennsylvania
Jan 2014 - Dec 2018
Bachelors + Masters, Computer Science
AchievementsIOI Bronze 2008 (Singapore) · IOI Silver 2009 · IOI Silver 2010 · IOI Silver 2011 · ICPC World Finals 2017 (Penn, rank 114) · ICPC World Finals 2018 (Penn, rank 117)
AwardsIOI Silver medal x3 (2009-2011) · IOI Bronze medal (2008)
Profiles
