Staff Software Engineer, Crunchyroll
AI Runtime Systems
$200-249k
Plus performance bonus earning potential
More information about location
3 days a week in office
Streaming service for anime and manga
Be an early applicant
Streaming service for anime and manga
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$200-249k
Plus performance bonus earning potential
More information about location
3 days a week in office
1001+ employees
Company mission
To create experiences for anime and manga fans, and to enable them to connect through the content they love.
Role
Who you are
- 12+ years of backend software engineering experience, with a track record of leading complex projects end-to-end
- Hands-on experience building and optimizing AI/ML inference runtimes (e.g., KServe, TorchServe, TensorRT, Triton) and integrating with CI/CD and MLOps pipelines (e.g., SageMaker, Kubeflow, BentoML)
- Expertise in JavaScript/TypeScript, with additional experience in Golang or Kotlin
- Experience with containers, orchestration (Kubernetes/ECS), cloud platforms (AWS preferred), and distributed systems
- Experience with performance profiling, model optimization, GPU acceleration, and designing inference workloads to meet latency/throughput SLAs
- Experienced in building scalable APIs (REST/gRPC), caching strategies, and high-performance systems, including relational and NoSQL databases
- Familiar with monitoring, observability tools, security, and compliance best practices in production ML/AI services
- Proven ability to collaborate with ML/AI teams, bridge research and production, and mentor peers
- Strong problem-solving, communication, and engineering best practices, with attention to detail and quality
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field—or equivalent practical experience
What the job involves
- Crunchyroll's Platform Development organization powers the infrastructure that delivers anime at scale to millions of fans worldwide
- We are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join our team in Los Angeles
- In this role you will drive the design and evolution of core platform services that power Crunchyroll's global ecosystem
- Your work will span authentication and security enhancements, notification services, and ML inference runtimes, forming the foundation that enables engineering teams to build reliable, secure, and intelligent experiences at scale
- You will lead architectural initiatives, define technical direction, and ensure system scalability, performance, and resilience across distributed environments
- Partnering closely with ML, data science, and engineering teams, you will shape the platform capabilities that support deploying and operating models in production, ensuring they meet the reliability and efficiency standards required for a global streaming service
- In the role of Staff Software Engineer, you will report to the Engineering Manager, Platform
- Architect, build, and maintain ML inference runtimes for multi-model serving, autoscaling, and GPU/TPU utilization
- Optimize inference pipelines and platform services for performance, reliability, and scalability
- Lead deployment, operationalization, and maintenance of ML workloads in collaboration with ML and data science teams
- Shape and maintain core platform services, including authentication, security, and notifications
- Ensure seamless integration with platform infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, and observability systems
- Define scalable system architectures and guide cross-team design alignment
- Develop benchmarking, validation, and monitoring tools to measure and maintain system performance
- Promote security, compliance, and engineering best practices across platform and ML services
- Mentor and influence engineering peers, fostering technical excellence and consistent standards
Our take
In recent decades, anime - encompassing Japanese, Korean, and Chinese animation 0 has transitioned from a niche interest to a formidable industry, boasting a global market worth approximately $30B. Despite this growth, distribution has historically posed challenges, with series and films often reaching overseas audiences through disparate channels, if at all. Crunchyroll emerged to address this issue by consolidating the largest collection of anime into a single streaming service.
Sony's acquisition of Crunchyroll in 2021 for $1.75B expanded the platform's reach, integrating Sony's extensive animation library into its offerings. this move also positioned Crunchyroll for heightened competition against streaming giant Netflix, known for its substantial investments in anime production and acquisition. Currently, Crunchyroll maintains an unrivaled library of anime content, boasting over 44,000 episodes that have attracted over 0M paying subscribers.
While Crunchyroll initially offered a free, ad-supported tier to its vast community, it appears poised to phase out this option, transitioning to a subscription-based model for all new series. Despite this shift, the platform has implemented a global reduction in fees to stimulate subscription uptake. The success of this strategy remains to be seen, but past experiences with companies like Hulu suggest that it may drive subscription growth and mitigate piracy
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (2 rounds)
Mar 2010
$0.8m
EARLY VC
Feb 2008
$4.1m
SERIES A
Total funding: $4.9m
Company benefits
- Receive a great compensation package including salary plus performance bonus earning potential, paid annually
- Flexible time off policies allowing you to take the time you need to be your whole self
- Generous medical, dental, vision, STD, LTD, and life insurance
- Health Saving Account HSA program
- Health care and dependent care FSA
- 401(k) plan, with employer match
- Employer paid commuter benefit
- Support program for new parents
- Pet insurance and some of our offices are pet friendly!
Company HQ
Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, CA
Leadership
Kun Gao
(Co-Founder & CEO)Co-founded Crunchyroll in 2006 and served as CEO/General Manager/Board Member until 2018. Previously the founder and CTO of Frappr.com as well as a Product Engineer at HOT or NOT.
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