Meet Alex Nguyen, an ML Research Scientist on Cognitiv's Modeling Team who is officially celebrating his one-year anniversary this month. With a knack for finding the signal in the noise—and a well-documented obsession with a good bowl of soup—Alex brings equal parts curiosity and rigor to everything he works on. When he is not training models or digging into live campaign performance, you might find him at a ballroom event in Oakland, sketching out his dream solo food tour of Southeast Asia, or staying up late as a self-professed night owl. Get to know the person behind the research.

• Pronouns: He/They
• Role: ML Research Scientist
• Team: Science, Modeling Team
• How long you’ve been at Cognitiv: Turning 1 year this month!

‍

Inside The Office

What does a typical day in your role really look like?

Honestly, no two days look the same, and it really depends on what the project needs. On a given day I might be reading research papers and running experiments to test new modeling approaches that sharpen our bidding decisions, or training/reviewing models headed for production, or digging into performance issues in a live campaign. Besides working with the models, a big part of the job is also in communication: sharing research results and analyses with other teams to help make scalable decisions for our system, or sharing new tools and methods with other researchers to collectively improve our workflows. Research is only as valuable as it is applicable and scalable in live systems.

What’s the part of your job you love most (that might surprise people)?

It might sound cliché, but it's the people and the culture. Cognitiv is my first job out of college, and I feel lucky to have landed somewhere that puts real effort into community and invests in its people's growth, in and out of the office. I love the technical side of the work — but it's the team that makes me grateful to be here.

What’s one thing you think will change in adtech in the next 5 years?

The open web is only going to get noisier. A growing share of traffic now comes from AI and automated systems rather than people, and consumers themselves are shifting from traditional browsing toward AI conversations to find what they need. That makes finding the real signal - the one that connects brands with actual humans - a constantly moving target.

What advice would you give someone joining #TeamCognitiv?

Stay curious. AdTech is huge and fast-moving, so there will always be something new to learn, especially if you come from a different background like I did. Even within Cognitiv, our products only work because of a large, evolving, and engineered ecosystem. In the past year, I’ve found myself learning some new corner of the machine every week. Lead with curiosity and you'll never run out of things to discover and contribute to.

‍

Outside The Office

What’s one unusual thing about you that might surprise coworkers?

Outside of work, I’m pretty involved in the ballroom scene here in the Bay (the underground queer subculture created by Black and Latino communities in NY in the 1970s, not the partnered dance style). I’m a part of a couple of ballroom houses (teams/chosen family), and often participate in competition and outreach events in Oakland/SF as part of this vibrant community.

What’s your go-to comfort food or guilty pleasure snack?

As all of my close friends know, I’m a big soup person. When I need a little extra comforting, I find that slurping on hot broth really does the trick. It’s hard to rank, but Bun Bo Hue is probably at the top of my list.

What hobby or skill would you love to pick up if time weren’t an issue?

Sewing. I’ve always wanted to make/design my own clothes.

If you could take a year off to do anything, what would you do?

Another cliche, but I would love to take the year to travel (if costs allow…). Specifically, I would do a solo food tour of Southeast Asia (outside of Vietnam) and the Caribbean countries - my two favorite cuisines.

‍

Rapid-Fire Fun

• Sweet or savory? Savory
• Early bird or night owl? Night owl
• Favorite childhood TV show or movie? Hannah Montana
• Last song you listened to? Young Love - Cleo Sol
• Beach, mountains, or city for a vacation? City

‍

Team Shoutouts

Working alongside Alex, I've found him to be incredibly proactive and hardworking, and he gets up to speed remarkably fast. He's always eager to learn across all aspects of the work, for example, after picking up on a promising modeling direction during a model talk, he quickly jumped in to try it out and ended up improving our model's performance. On top of that, he's an energetic, friendly presence who really adds to the positive atmosphere in the office. He's been a great teammate! 

- Yihan, Senior Research Scientist