At Millennium, creativity is a core part of how technologists solve problems. Our Creative Engineer series highlights how the firm enables its people to pursue ideas, experiment and apply creative approaches to their work.
Alexis Chen, a Data Operations Analyst based in Hong Kong, helps make financial data easier for portfolio managers to use. She approaches her work with curiosity and a willingness to experiment, drawing on AI tools, domain knowledge and colleagues’ experience to develop her ideas.
Read more about how Alexis approaches creativity, collaboration and building with AI:
Can you explain your role in one sentence without using the word AI?
I develop data pipelines and improve file monitoring systems to make financial data easier for portfolio managers to use.
How do you apply creativity in your work?
I think of AI as both a teacher and an assistant. It helps me understand how systems developed by my colleagues work, even when I don’t have full context.
Curiosity motivates me to keep exploring instead of relying on familiar approaches. I use AI to test different solutions and compare the results, then turn what I learn into practical improvements.
What skills do you rely on when working with AI?
Context engineering is important. It means giving AI clear instructions and constraints that reflect the problem you are trying to solve. In my role, this requires an understanding of financial data, not just familiarity with the AI tools themselves. Knowing the data helps me give AI more useful direction.
AI can help me identify an issue and suggest ways to address it, but my own knowledge helps narrow the search. When I identify a few likely causes, I can ask AI to investigate those possibilities. That combination of domain knowledge and clear instructions helps me work through problems more effectively.
How do you keep pace with new AI tools and capabilities?
Millennium provides access to advanced AI models and resources for experimentation and opportunities for internal knowledge sharing. Through these opportunities, colleagues discuss useful techniques, compare approaches and demonstrate the tools they’ve built.
That collaboration also helps us develop ideas further. I can discuss an idea with my peers and manager, and my manager can help identify opportunities to work with colleagues across teams and regions. When I’m working through a difficult problem, I share the approaches I’ve tried and what I’ve learned so we can address it together.
What excites you about continuing to build with AI?
What excites me is being able to turn an idea into something colleagues can use. AI helps us develop and iterate on solutions, and at Millennium, I’ve seen that work put to use by other team members. For me, that is what makes the technology transformative: the connection between having an idea and putting it into practice within the firm.
