# Sang-Uok Kum

> Staff Software Engineer

Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/sanguok

Software engineer / team lead with strong skills in designing and launching large scale data processing systems and backend services in various domains (e.g. maps, search, video).

## Work Experience
### Staff Software Engineer @ Bear Robotics
Jan 2023 – Present

### Senior Software Engineer - Geo @ Google
Jan 2021 – Jan 2023
Tech lead for designing and developing an aerial and satellite imagery serving system for multiple teams across Google.

### Senior Software Engineer - AdSpam @ Google
Jan 2019 – Jan 2021
Lead launching multiple ML models for assessing risk of Ad Publishers. Models were trained using Keras with features engineered from Publisher relationship graphs.

Designed and launched the update notification system for a distributed scalable graph database for detecting abuse.

### Senior Software Engineer - Cloud IoT @ Google
Jan 2019 – Jan 2019
Tech lead for developing a solution for local offline factory manufacturing quality control using the Coral (https://coral.ai) platform.

### Senior Software Engineer - Search @ Google
Jan 2015 – Jan 2018
Tech lead for “On TV soon” search results which launched in the US, UK, India, Brazil, and Indonesia. Developed a novel algorithm for retrieving location dependent results from Knowledge Graph in real time.

### Senior Software Engineer - YouTube @ Google
Jan 2006 – Jan 2015
Tech lead for designing and launching the video quality monitoring system and video quality metrics, as well as improving video quality.

Developed video processing system and transcoding engines for processing all of Google's video properties including YouTube and Photos

### Research Assistant @ University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Jan 1998 – Jan 2006
- Developed effective encoding techniques for multiple depth streams (streams with color and depth) using traditional video compression techniques and image based rendering (IBR) techniques. Papers published in NOSSSDAV 2006 and 3DPVT 2006.

- Developed a real-time algorithm to compress 3D dynamic environments for Tele-Immersion. Papers published in ACM Multimedia 2003, ACM TOMCCAP, ITP 2002, and CVRV 2003.

- Set up a distributed VR system using 2 SGI O2s, Fakespace Pinch Glove, Polyhemus FASTRAK and LONG RANGER, and 2 Virtual Reality V6 HMDs.

- Set up a real-time, server-side, semi-automatic anchor generation system designed for tracking faces in video conferencing environments. Paper published in ACM Hypertext 2000.

- Set up a real time image acquisition system using the Dalsa DAC512 high speed black & white camera with the Matrox Genesis card via the VLDS interface for Office of the Future.

- Designed 8b/10b encoder & decoder circuit which runs with a 400MHz clock.

- Developed real-time surface shaders for multiple data-set visualization and image analysis package for the Nanomanipulator.


## Education
### Doctor of Philosophy - PhD in Computer Science
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

### Master's degree in Computer Science
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

### Bachelor's degree in Astronomy (Minor: Computer Science)
Yonsei University


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

---
Source: https://flows.cv/sanguok
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/sanguok/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-04-01