--- title: 'Software Engineer at Spellbrush' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-spellbrush-san-francisco-7p9r7r1f6q1b' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-06' --- # Software Engineer at Spellbrush - **Company:** Spellbrush - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Posted:** 2024-10-30 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-06 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/spellbrush/550b3de6-2c6d-4a80-aa3b-a530b6e48464 ## Job description [https://app.ashbyhq.com/api/images/user-content/89c1442c-bd9c-46be-a910-20b49b5d9ffc/20ffb2db-1beb-429d-894f-ebb50a85bdb2/image.png] ## GENERALIST SOFTWARE ENGINEER ## ABOUT US Here at Spellbrush, we're passionate about making a good anime game. We also happen to be the world's leading generative AI studio — we're the team behind niji・journey https://nijijourney.com/. We are currently investigating how AI can be used to help human artists perform masterpieces in the most complex medium of our times: videogames. Our games are characterized by a no-compromise approach to well-balanced gameplay married to a truthful love of visual arts. If you love turn-based tactics games, please consider applying! ## ABOUT THE ROLE As Spellbrush continues to grow rapidly, we're seeking talented generalist engineers to join our team and help us build advanced data pipelines, foundational datasets, as well as the tools and infrastructure that support them. If the thought of running a batch job across ten-thousand GPUs to ingest petabytes worth of anime image and videos excites you, this is the job for you! ## WHAT YOU'LL ACHIEVE You'll define the processes and infrastructure to transform and make data readily available across the company, whether it be embeddings, video, bounding boxes, or more. You'll partner with our world class AI researchers to understand their needs, and then design, build and monitor pipelines that meet today's requirements but can gracefully scale with our growing data size. ## SKILLS YOU'LL NEED TO BRING You are a self-starter and can work directly with the research team to gather and synthesize high-impact needs from teammates, designing and implementing the appropriate technical solutions, and effectively communicating about deliverables, timelines and tradeoffs. You've spent 3+ years as software engineer, with a wide generalist skillset. You’ve worked with distributed systems, and previously administered a big data toolset (Ray, Spark, Airflow, etc.). You have hands-on experience shipping scalable data solutions in the cloud (e.g AWS, GCP, Azure, etc.), across multiple data stores (e.g Snowflake, Redshift, Hive, SQL/NoSQL, etc.). You’re comfortable pulling data from whatever source it may be in, whether that involves writing a complex SQL query to pull a billion rows out of a Bigquery Database, or coordinating the transfer of 10+ PB of data across two S3 regions. You are highly comfortable with scripting, whether in Typescript, Python, or even Bash when the need arises. Most importantly, you know when to pull in the complex overengineered tools, and when to instead rely on duct tape. YOU MAY BE A GOOD FIT IF: YOU HAVE HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE IN DESIGNING AND BUILDING HIGHLY SCALABLE AND RELIABLE DATA PIPELINES Building data pipelines for AI presents itself with unique challenges. If you’ve previously built large scale big data pipelines, you’d be a good fit. YOU’RE INTERESTED IN LEARNING AND INTERFACING WITH AI RESEARCHERS You’ll interface with some of the best AI researchers in the world, meaning that you’ll get to learn from the best. Your code will frequently need to ingest values and embeddings from our state-of-the-art models, and we’ll help you get up to speed here. ## YOU LOVE ANIME AND THE ANIME AESTHETIC As a member of our team, you'll have the opportunity to push the boundaries of what's possible in the anime and video game industry. Ideally you're a fan of the genre. ## YOU'RE COMFORTABLE WORKING ON SMALL, FAST-PACED TEAMS Our engineering team is small but mighty. You'll be working directly with some of the best AI researchers and engineers in the world to integrate their state-of-the-art models into your beautiful interfaces. 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. Visa sponsorships are available. [https://app.ashbyhq.com/api/images/user-content/89c1442c-bd9c-46be-a910-20b49b5d9ffc/9615e43d-d61e-456f-9117-ce2f2537a42f/image.png] ## 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 - [HPC/ML Infrastructure Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/hpc-ml-infrastructure-engineer-spellbrush-san-francisco-zhh2f9af9wcn) — San Francisco, CA - [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 - [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