Alex Salgado

PhD, Senior Developer Advocate @ Elastic - LATAM

Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

About

Experienced Developer Advocate at Elastic with over 20 years in software development, project management, and education. Currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Vision at Universidade Federal Fluminense, focusing on creating a perception system for visual navigation in autonomous robotic boats . Passionate about bridging academia and industry through talks, blogs, and events on vector search, IoT, and observability.

Experience

  • Senior Developer Advocate - LATAM at Elastic
    Mar 2022 - Present · 4 yrs 4 mos

    I connect developers and organizations to Elastic’s ecosystem by creating high-impact technical content and driving adoption across search, observability, and AI. My work spans blogs, videos, large-scale events, and global conferences — with a focus on making complex topics like LLMs, AI Agents and vector search accessible and practical. I also actively engage with the community through forums, meetups, and hands-on technical guidance. Core areas: Search Engines · Observability · AI · Large Language Models (LLMs) Articles: elastic.co/search-labs/author/alex-salgado Videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycr6GOQ1kdk Talks: https://www.instagram.com/alexsalgadoprof/

  • Doctoral Researcher - Computer Vision Engineer for autonomous vehicle at MediaLabs - Universidade Federal Fluminense
    Jan 2020 - Mar 2026 · 6 yrs 3 mos

    Building the future of autonomous maritime systems using Agentic AI and Physical AI. Creator of USV-3.0, a cognitive navigation framework that enables autonomous vessels to learn routes from a single demonstration — combining Vision-Language Models, Human-in-the-Loop learning, and Spatio-Temporal Memory. Creator of marine environment digital twin for USV: VisualSimBoat My work focuses on bridging AI and real-world navigation, reducing reliance on massive training data through more human-like learning paradigms. Publications • USV-3.0: Cognitive Maritime Navigation Through Vision-Language Models, Human-in-the-Loop Learning, and Spatial-Temporal Memory — Ocean Engineering (Elsevier), 2026 • VisualSimBoat: A High-Fidelity Visual Simulator for Autonomous Surface Vehicles — CROS 2025 • On the Use of Visual Perception for Unmanned Surface Vehicles Navigation — LARS 2024

  • Unilasalle-RJ (8 yrs 1 mo)
    • Innovation Coordinator - Google For Education Program
      Jan 2018 - Feb 2022 · 4 yrs 2 mos

    • Professor
      Feb 2014 - Feb 2022 · 8 yrs 1 mo

  • Siemens (9 yrs 6 mos)
    • Project Manager / Technology Consultant
      Aug 2008 - May 2014 · 5 yrs 10 mos

    • Team Leader / Solution Architect
      Apr 2006 - Aug 2008 · 2 yrs 5 mos

    • Systems analyst
      Dec 2004 - Mar 2006 · 1 yr 4 mos

  • Co-Founder / Developer at Triade Soluções Inteligentes
    Jan 2000 - Jan 2005 · 5 yrs 1 mo