{"schemaVersion":"jobsearcher.job.v1","id":"4fb64580c51469960f69eafb","url":"https://jobsearcher.com/jobs/4fb64580c51469960f69eafb","canonicalUrl":"https://jobsearcher.com/jobs/4fb64580c51469960f69eafb","title":"Systems Engineer, Wizard Headless","description":"Wizard is the AI-native platform for creative work, starting with professional video: a native C++ editor and headless media runtime that humans, agents, and developers all operate.\n\nTurn Wizard into an engine: a CLI and hosted API that every Wizard product builds on.\n\nWhy this role matters\n\nWizard Headless is the engine under everything we're building next: WizReview, a modular front end people can extend, plugins that can't break what's underneath, custom pipelines for studios like ILM and Disney, new apps on a hosted runtime, and WizBox on set. Today the core still lives inside the editor app. You'll help pull it out and give it a clean, stable API that people and models can build on.\n\nAbout the role\n\nYou'll work with Sam Mills, our Founding Video Engine Lead, in our native C++ codebase. You'll separate the runtime from the UI, build the CLI that renders and edits projects with no interface at all, and design the hosted render and edit API that WizReview and future apps call. You'll work closely with our media pipeline, color, audio, and AI leads.\n\nWhat you'll do\n\nPull the core runtime out of the app: project state, commands, history, playback, and rendering.\n\nShip a CLI that opens a .wiz project and renders it end to end with no UI.\n\nDesign the hosted render and edit API, then scale it.\n\nDefine the plugin boundary so extensions and vibe-coded tools can't corrupt project state.\n\nMake large projects fast: memory layout, caching, concurrency, and GPU pipelines.\n\nProfile and fix production issues found in Story's edit bays, often the same day.\n\nWhat you bring\n\nSystems languages: production C++ (and comfort in Rust or similar), shipped in performance-sensitive native software.\n\nGPU pipelines: you've built or optimized rendering, compute, or media processing on the GPU.\n\nAPI design: you've designed interfaces other teams and outside developers depended on.\n\nDeep software fundamentals: memory management, concurrency, data structures, and system design. You can defend the engineering decisions you make.\n\nAI-assisted engineering: deep experience using AI coding tools to build and ship software.\n\nShow us what you can do\n\nWe welcome different backgrounds. Evidence of a strong fit could include:\n\nA media engine, renderer, or runtime you built or substantially owned (for example at Blackmagic, Apple AVFoundation, Netflix encoding, Mux, or Remotion).\n\nCore contributions to FFmpeg or similar media libraries.\n\nSystems you made dramatically faster, with the measurements to show it.\n\nYou do not need a backend title. We care about what you can build, how you think, and the decisions you can defend.\n\nAbout Wizard\n\nEvery so often, a new technology redefines how stories get told: the printing press, the telephone, radio, the film camera, the cutting room, television, the digital camera, non-linear editing. We think we're at the start of the next one, and we intend to build the company that defines it.\n\nWizard is the AI-native platform for creative work, starting with the hardest creative workflow: professional video. In roughly six months, our team built a native C++ editor and a headless media runtime that humans, agents, and developers all operate. Oz, our agent, ingests footage at roughly 300× real time and edits at 30–60× real time, and every change it makes stays inspectable, editable, and reversible.\n\nOur philosophy is creative as code: every decision editable, controllable, composable, never generative slop you regenerate and hope for the best. Controllability over convenience. Artist integrity over automation. Taste over throughput.\n\nOur sister company is Story, a production company making video for frontier AI labs and deep-tech companies. We work closely with them: Story is our first customer and in-house design partner, and its editors cut real client work on Wizard every day.\n\nOur team comes from Industrial Light & Magic, Netflix, Apple, Epic Games, Lucasfilm, Blizzard, and 2K. We work in person in San Francisco.","company":"Wizard Studios","rawCompany":"wizard studios","city":"Millbrae","state":"CA","isRemote":false,"isActive":false,"createdAt":"2026-11-05T09:41:06.468Z","occupations":[{"code":"15-1299.08","title":"Computer Systems Engineers/Architects","slug":"computer-systems-engineers-architects"},{"code":"15-1252.00","title":"Software Developers","slug":"software-developers"},{"code":"17-2199.00","title":"Engineers, All Other","slug":"engineers-all-other"}],"industries":[{"code":"513210","title":"Software Publishers","slug":"software-publishers"},{"code":"541511","title":"Custom Computer Programming Services","slug":"custom-computer-programming-services"},{"code":"541512","title":"Computer Systems Design Services","slug":"computer-systems-design-services"}],"jobPosting":{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"JobPosting","title":"Systems Engineer, Wizard Headless","description":"Wizard is the AI-native platform for creative work, starting with professional video: a native C++ editor and headless media runtime that humans, agents, and developers all operate.\n\nTurn Wizard into an engine: a CLI and hosted API that every Wizard product builds on.\n\nWhy this role matters\n\nWizard Headless is the engine under everything we're building next: WizReview, a modular front end people can extend, plugins that can't break what's underneath, custom pipelines for studios like ILM and Disney, new apps on a hosted runtime, and WizBox on set. Today the core still lives inside the editor app. You'll help pull it out and give it a clean, stable API that people and models can build on.\n\nAbout the role\n\nYou'll work with Sam Mills, our Founding Video Engine Lead, in our native C++ codebase. You'll separate the runtime from the UI, build the CLI that renders and edits projects with no interface at all, and design the hosted render and edit API that WizReview and future apps call. You'll work closely with our media pipeline, color, audio, and AI leads.\n\nWhat you'll do\n\nPull the core runtime out of the app: project state, commands, history, playback, and rendering.\n\nShip a CLI that opens a .wiz project and renders it end to end with no UI.\n\nDesign the hosted render and edit API, then scale it.\n\nDefine the plugin boundary so extensions and vibe-coded tools can't corrupt project state.\n\nMake large projects fast: memory layout, caching, concurrency, and GPU pipelines.\n\nProfile and fix production issues found in Story's edit bays, often the same day.\n\nWhat you bring\n\nSystems languages: production C++ (and comfort in Rust or similar), shipped in performance-sensitive native software.\n\nGPU pipelines: you've built or optimized rendering, compute, or media processing on the GPU.\n\nAPI design: you've designed interfaces other teams and outside developers depended on.\n\nDeep software fundamentals: memory management, concurrency, data structures, and system design. You can defend the engineering decisions you make.\n\nAI-assisted engineering: deep experience using AI coding tools to build and ship software.\n\nShow us what you can do\n\nWe welcome different backgrounds. Evidence of a strong fit could include:\n\nA media engine, renderer, or runtime you built or substantially owned (for example at Blackmagic, Apple AVFoundation, Netflix encoding, Mux, or Remotion).\n\nCore contributions to FFmpeg or similar media libraries.\n\nSystems you made dramatically faster, with the measurements to show it.\n\nYou do not need a backend title. We care about what you can build, how you think, and the decisions you can defend.\n\nAbout Wizard\n\nEvery so often, a new technology redefines how stories get told: the printing press, the telephone, radio, the film camera, the cutting room, television, the digital camera, non-linear editing. We think we're at the start of the next one, and we intend to build the company that defines it.\n\nWizard is the AI-native platform for creative work, starting with the hardest creative workflow: professional video. In roughly six months, our team built a native C++ editor and a headless media runtime that humans, agents, and developers all operate. Oz, our agent, ingests footage at roughly 300× real time and edits at 30–60× real time, and every change it makes stays inspectable, editable, and reversible.\n\nOur philosophy is creative as code: every decision editable, controllable, composable, never generative slop you regenerate and hope for the best. Controllability over convenience. Artist integrity over automation. Taste over throughput.\n\nOur sister company is Story, a production company making video for frontier AI labs and deep-tech companies. We work closely with them: Story is our first customer and in-house design partner, and its editors cut real client work on Wizard every day.\n\nOur team comes from Industrial Light & Magic, Netflix, Apple, Epic Games, Lucasfilm, Blizzard, and 2K. We work in person in San Francisco.","datePosted":"2026-11-05T09:41:06.468Z","dateModified":"2026-11-05T09:41:06.468Z","hiringOrganization":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Wizard Studios","sameAs":"https://jobsearcher.com"},"jobLocation":{"@type":"Place","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","addressLocality":"Millbrae","addressRegion":"CA","addressCountry":"US"}},"identifier":{"@type":"PropertyValue","name":"JobSearcher","value":"4fb64580c51469960f69eafb"},"url":"https://jobsearcher.com/jobs/4fb64580c51469960f69eafb"}}