---
title: 'HPC/ML Infrastructure Engineer at Spellbrush'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/hpc-ml-infrastructure-engineer-spellbrush-san-francisco-zhh2f9af9wcn'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-13'
---

# HPC/ML Infrastructure Engineer at Spellbrush

- **Company:** Spellbrush
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-06-15
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-13
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/spellbrush/449fdcb3-fb20-4e4c-87d6-f9007ebd404b

## Job description

We’re looking for an experienced HPC infrastructure engineer to lead bringup, administration, and operations on is probably the largest anime AI training cluster in the world. You’ll serve as the bridge between our researchers and the bare GPU machines, helping to make sure that SLURM jobs are running, parallel filesystems are serving, network is transmitting, and that the anime models are training. You may be a good fit if: You love anime and the anime aesthetic. This probably one of the only jobs in the world where you will get to combine your love of anime and large-scale GPU systems. You’re familiar with the modern HPC software landscape Once upon a time, our team could install SLURM on a few bare metal nodes and get away with it. Now the landscape has become unbelievable complex, with SLURM deploys through Slinky on K8s, provisioning through warewulf/MAAS/ansible, filesystems through WEKA/VAST/Ceph, VPN and access through tailscale, and monitoring via the Grafana/Prometheus stack. We’re looking for someone with relevant experience up and down the stack (and maybe a papercut or two to show for it!) As well as the traditional sysadmin landscape Bringing up and managing cluster still requires good old linux sysadmin skills, including wrangling ldap, triaging dmesg, and setting sticky bits on directories for misbehaving users and tools. You're not afraid of physical computers We’re building out edge datacenters and our CEO is still personally racking, stacking, and provisioning HGX-based nodes in our living room. Also his VLAN design sucks and he’s bad at fiber routing. Please send help. And you're comfortable working on small, fast-paced teams. We currently have a very tiny research team, and you’ll be directly helping some of the AI researchers in the world train the best anime image model in the world. We also believe in the unmatched speed of in-person teams, and prefer on-site collaboration in either our primary research office in Tokyo (downtown Akihabara), or San Francisco (dogpatch!). Bay area is strongly preferred as we have physical hardware in the Bay Area. Visa sponsorships are available.

## About Spellbrush

## Company Overview
- **One‑liner**: Spellbrush is the world’s leading generative AI studio for anime – the team behind niji・journey – that is building a no‑compromise turn‑based tactics game.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed‑stage; received $245K in total funding from Y Combinator and other investors)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States (also offices in Chiyoda City, Tokyo, Japan)
- **Founded**: 2018
- **Founders**: Cory Li (CEO), Haitao Mao (Co‑Founder, GameDev), Ruwen Liu (Co‑Founder)

## Core Business
- **Primary industries**: Generative AI, Computer Games (Anime)
- **Target customers**: B2C – anime fans, gamers, and digital artists; also B2B2C through their AI image/video generation platform used by artists and studios.
- **Mission statement**: “Making Anime Real” – using AI to help human artists create masterpieces in the most complex medium of video games.

## Products & Services
- **[niji・journey](https://spellbrush.com/)**: AI image generation model specialized in anime and illustration styles; accessible via Midjourney. Users can generate high‑quality anime art from text prompts.
- **Niji Video**: A recently released video generation model that produces anime‑style video clips (announced in 2025‑2026).
- **Unannounced Turn‑Based Tactics Game**: A “good anime game” being developed in‑house, focused on well‑balanced gameplay and a truthful love of visual arts. The game uses Unity and leverages Spellbrush’s own AI research.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed.
- **Key Metrics**:
  - Annual Revenue: Approximately $800K (estimated from 2025‑2026 data).
  - Total Funding: $245K (Seed rounds in 2018).
  - Headcount: ~25 employees (+19.2% YoY).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Y Combinator (Winter 2018 batch; primary partner Diana Hu). Seed investors include unnamed backers.
- **Growth Signals**:
  - 10 active job postings across AI research, engineering, and game design.
  - Released Niji Video, expanding beyond static images into anime video generation.
  - Expanded headcount by ~20% year‑over‑year.
  - Presence in both San Francisco and Tokyo, tapping into the global anime and game talent pool.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Leading generative AI for anime** – niji・journey is the most prominent anime‑focused AI image generator, with a large user community.
- **Deep integration with Midjourney** provides a built‑in distribution channel for their model.
- **Niche focus**: The company is singularly dedicated to high‑quality anime and game art, creating a tightly‑focused R&D pipeline.
- **In‑house game development** allows them to eat their own dogfood – using AI to accelerate game asset creation while maintaining human artistry.

## Strategic Focus
- **AI‑powered game development**: Using their generative AI to build an original turn‑based tactics game, demonstrating their technology in practice.
- **Advancing anime video generation**: Expanding from still images to video (Niji Video) to capture the growing demand for AI‑assisted animation.
- **Research‑first approach**: Hiring AI researchers (LLMs, motion generation, video models) to push the boundaries of what AI can do for the anime medium.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture & mission**: A team of passionate anime and game lovers who care about artistic quality. “No‑compromise approach to well‑balanced gameplay married to a truthful love of visual arts.”
- **Work environment**: Remote‑friendly – roles are open to candidates in San Francisco, Tokyo, or fully remote. Fresh graduates are welcome (some positions note “Any (new grads ok)”).
- **Engineering culture**: You’ll work on cutting‑edge generative AI (diffusion models, LLMs, video generation) alongside veteran researchers from Midjourney, Meta, NVIDIA, and Preferred Networks.
- **Perks & highlights**: Opportunity to contribute to a globally used AI platform (niji・journey) and to build an original anime game from the ground up. Flexible location, small team with high ownership.

## Sources
1. [spellbrush.com](https://spellbrush.com/careers) – Career page (company description, values)
2. [ycombinator.com](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/spellbrush) – Y Combinator profile (founding, batch, team size, HQ)
3. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/spellbrush) – LinkedIn page (headcount, revenue, funding, locations, recent news)
4. [jobs.ashbyhq.com](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/spellbrush) – Open roles (tech stack: Unity, TypeScript; remote policy)

## Other roles at Spellbrush

- [3D Game Programmer (Unity)](https://feeny.ai/job/3d-game-programmer-unity-spellbrush-san-francisco-fwee1ea6fp02) — San Francisco, CA
- [AI Anime Researcher - LLM](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-anime-researcher-llm-spellbrush-san-francisco-1tzstywjhh72) — San Francisco, CA
- [AI Anime Researcher - Motion Generation Models](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-anime-researcher-motion-generation-models-spellbrush-san-francisco-sb7f86zn4qvq) — San Francisco, CA
- [バックオフィス　マネージャー](https://feeny.ai/job/spellbrush-tokyo-07ng2njrate7) — Tokyo, Japan
- [Level Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/level-designer-spellbrush-san-francisco-2rn72sf2g34v) — San Francisco, CA
- [Game Programmer (Unity)](https://feeny.ai/job/game-programmer-unity-spellbrush-san-francisco-rt0g3ng467yr) — San Francisco, CA
- [Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-spellbrush-san-francisco-7p9r7r1f6q1b) — San Francisco, CA
- [AI Anime Researcher](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-anime-researcher-spellbrush-tokyo-5pej30ze08je) — Tokyo, Japan
- [AI Infrastructure Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-infrastructure-engineer-spellbrush-san-francisco-gesa1p6q0qnf) — San Francisco, CA
- [Front-End Engineer (Anime)](https://feeny.ai/job/front-end-engineer-anime-spellbrush-san-francisco-bgraht6gnhf3) — San Francisco, CA