# Harley Montgomery

> Machine Learning / Computer Vision Engineer

Location: San Francisco, California, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/harley

I earned my M.S. in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, where I focused on deep reinforcement learning for autonomous robotic skill learning.

## Work Experience
### Machine Learning Engineer - Perception @ Zoox
Jan 2020 – Jan 2025 | San Francisco Bay Area
- Designed and iterated on multi-modal perception models combining 2D object detection and semantic segmentation, progressing to end-to-end transformer-based architectures with direct 3D bounding box prediction.
- Optimized model latency for on-vehicle deployment through architecture redesign, bottleneck profiling (GPU flame graphs), and quantization via TensorRT - balancing detection accuracy against real-time safety-critical inference requirements.
- Helped architect and manage the internal training framework (PyTorch Lightning wrapper) - became a go-to engineer for model training issues including data throughput, architecture sizing, and optimization bottlenecks.
- Evaluated and integrated state-of-the-art research into production perception models - reading, benchmarking, and adapting novel architectures to meet on-vehicle compute and latency constraints.
- Verified and validated perception models for safe on-vehicle deployment, ensuring compliance with autonomous vehicle safety cases.
- Named inventor on 3 granted U.S. patents spanning scene embedding-based detection, construction zone perception, and collision avoidance trajectory prediction - covering sensing through planning across the full autonomy stack.

### Computer Vision Engineer @ Ubiquity6 Inc.
Jan 2018 – Jan 2020 | San Francisco Bay Area
- Implemented structure-from-motion and 3D reconstruction algorithms in C++ - converting raw mobile video into navigable 3D meshes using off-the-shelf libraries (COLMAP/Ceres) with significant custom optimization.
- Identified and eliminated critical performance bottlenecks in the reconstruction pipeline.
- Designed and productionized backend reconstruction pipelines on AWS - architecting job orchestration, storage optimization, and data handoff to the frontend team for a consumer-facing product.
- Operated across the full backend stack in a startup environment - spanning CV algorithm development, cloud infrastructure design, and pipeline reliability beyond core computer vision responsibilities.

### Research Scientist @ Pilot AI
Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | Redwood City
- Designed object detection models optimized for extreme latency constraints - running inference directly on security camera hardware with no dedicated GPU, pioneering early edge AI deployment patterns.
- Helped develop the company's in-house deep learning framework in C++
- Worked on intelligent caching strategies for neural network inference - leveraging temporal scene consistency to skip redundant computation and dramatically reduce per-frame processing cost on edge devices.

### Research Assistant @ University of Washington
Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | Seattle
Worked with Professor Sergey Levine on deep reinforcement learning for autonomous robotic skill learning, focusing on model-based updates for improved sample complexity.

### Intern @ Marchex
Jan 2015 – Jan 2015 | Seattle
Developed in-house APIs for production with Node.js/Postgres/Redis. Helped design/build new business products with Node.js. Helped debug issues arising in production.

### Research Assistant @ University of Washington
Jan 2013 – Jan 2015 | Seattle
Worked with Professor Rajesh Rao to explore the use of hierarchical Bayesian models for causal reasoning and non-parametric clustering in the robotics/BCI domain.

### Intern @ Genentech
Jan 2012 – Jan 2012 | South San Franciscio
Characterized xCELLigence platform for cell-based assays.

### Intern @ Genentech
Jan 2011 – Jan 2011 | South San Francisco
Qualified and assessed new ELISA for beta-amyloid protein.


## Education
### Master of Science - MS in Computer Science and Engineering
University of Washington

### Bachelor of Arts - BA in Neuroscience
Pomona College


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/harley-montgomery

---
Source: https://flows.cv/harley
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/harley/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-04-05