David Huang
David Huang
Building & Investing in AI | ex-Palantir, Coatue
Projects
Ideas brought to life. A look at the products, companies, and creative works built from the ground up.
WorldWatcher (concept / product exploration)
A transparent, heads-up system to track news currents across publications, languages, and time—spotting initial ripples and tracing ebbs and flows. Presented in LinkedIn posts as an active interest/product idea.
Prototype research tools (self-employed)
Built prototype research tools for text analysis, news monitoring, backtesting, and portfolio analysis to support applied AI systems and investment research.
Forward Deployed Engineer: the Job that Makes AI Real (Substack article, co-authored)
Co-authored Substack post on how Forward Deployed Engineering can co-design and accelerate AI adoption in enterprise and government contexts.
Two Sigma Halite AI Challenge
Competitor and CornellTech hackathon winner (global top 1%; global ~50/5800 ranking).
Lux AI Challenge (organizing team)
Contributed to mechanics & API design and outreach for the competition.
ARC-AGI 1 AI Challenge
Participant and content reviewer in 2024 edition of ARC-AGI challenge.
Community contributions: Latent Space, Quantopian, alphaXiv, etc.
Active online contributor to quant/AI communities focused on algorithmic trading, research, and open discourse.
In the Spotlight
A collection of articles, interviews, and viral content where achievements have been shared.
Recognitions
Formal validation from the top. A showcase of official awards, grants, and government acknowledgements.
Cosmos Institute Grant winner
2024Awarded a grant to build applied AI systems aimed at sharpening thinking and assisting truth-seeking.
Regents' and Chancellor's Scholarship (UC Berkeley)
Awarded May 20094-year full scholarship awarded by UC Berkeley for creativity, leadership, service, and strong convictions.
Two Sigma Halite AI Challenge — CornellTech hackathon winner
Jan 2018Global top 1% placement in Two Sigma Halite AI Challenge; recognized as a high-ranking competitor.
Outstanding Mentor Award — Berkeley Pioneers in Engineering Robotics
2013Awarded for mentoring Bay Area high-schoolers in robotics (battle-bot competition).
National Advanced Placement Scholar
Jan 2008Recognition from the College Board.
Work Experience
Key roles that defined the journey.
AI Engineer & Investor (Self-employed)
2022 - PresentBuilding applied AI systems and prototype research tools (text analysis, news monitoring, backtesting, portfolio analysis). Advises AI-adjacent startups on technology and product, makes introductions to business partners and potential investors, and invests in public and private companies at the nexus of geopolitical shifts and AI-accelerated deeper tech.
Principal Data Scientist
2022 - 2024Conducted systematic venture research (market segmentation, valuation trend, talent trajectories). Ideated, built, demoed, and deployed data-driven research tools for 20+ internal and portfolio investors. Tracked latest research (NLP, network science) and scouted startup talent and investors.
Data Scientist
2020 - 2022Performed market-intelligence research across venture, growth, and public stages. Researched company financials, tech stacks, talent flow, open-source adoption, and crypto ecosystem to inform sourcing, due diligence, and portfolio operations. Contributed to deal-winning materials by injecting differentiated product insights.
Data Engineer & Head of Data
2016 - 2020Designed and evolved data systems to manage multi-billion-dollar daily forex trades for 20+ institutions. Architected full-stack systems to bridge data from trading/risk systems to end-users and created internal analytics reporting to C-suite. Led teams delivering production data infrastructure.
Forward Deployed Engineer
2014 - 2015Built data pipelines and analysis systems to help two leading banks combat fraud and money laundering. Delivered monthly client demos and iterated product based on feedback.
Researcher — Computational Game Theory & Bioinformatics
2012 - 2013Research in computational game theory, bioinformatics, and algorithms.
Researcher — Organizational Behavior
2010 - 2011Researched how differences in status and power affect group dynamics and performance.
Course Assistant — Principles of Business
2010Course assistant responsibilities.
Membership
Affiliations and memberships in prestigious organizations and communities.
Recipient of the Regents' and Chancellor's Scholarship; affiliated with the scholars association during UC Berkeley studies.
Mentored high-school students in robotic hardware, software, tactics & strategy; earned Outstanding Mentor Award (2013).
Regular participant in local technical meetups.
Contributed as participant and reviewer.
Helped organize competition mechanics, API and outreach.
Active contributor to community research and discussion.
Education
Academic foundation and learning journey.
University of California, Berkeley
Bachelor's degree, Computer Science; Applied Mathematics
Activities and societies: Regents' and Chancellor's Scholars Association, Singularity Summit, Computational Game Theory Research, Pioneers in Engineering Robotics Competition, Intramural Soccer
Carleton University
Summer, Shad Valley
Summer program exploring intersection among science, technology & entrepreneurship.
Burnaby North Secondary School
Activities and societies: Reach for the Top
Socials
Connect and explore.