UI/UX Software Engineer (C++/Qt)

Wizard Studios; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

In-person in San Francisco

Job summary

Wizard Studios is an AI-native platform for creative work, starting with a professional video editor built in C++ and a headless media runtime. The team develops an interface in Qt Widgets with growing QML integration, focusing on fast, production-grade UI for editors.

You’ll contribute as the second frontend engineer, collaborating with our Head of Product to ship weekly UI improvements, with the aim to make the tools feel instant and clear on large projects, while supporting cross-platform

Qualifications

• Three+ years of professional C++ development, including a shipped desktop application.
• Experience building complex, stateful UI connected to data models and services.
• Ability to craft fast, responsive, custom UI with reusable widgets and patterns.

Responsibilities

• Build the timeline, panels, and viewers in C++ and Qt, primarily Qt Widgets and custom-painted components, with QML where used.
• Make interactions feel instant on large projects through painting, caching, and responsiveness.
• Ship improvements from editors' feedback every week.
• Own moderately scoped features from planning through testing and release.
• Develop reusable widgets, controls, themes, and desktop interaction patterns as the UI modularizes.
• Debug across widget, painting, QML, and application-logic layers, and write tests.

Skills

Production C++

Complex UI

Custom UI performance

Craft/UI usability

Video editing fluency

Tools

Qt Widgets

QML

Qt

Job 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.

Build the interface editors live in ten hours a day: as fast as Resolve, as clear as Final Cut.

Why this role matters

Designed by editors, for editors is our actual GTM positioning, not a slogan. Resolve parity is a hard requirement, because professional editors can't switch to something that's only good because of AI; the base software has to be excellent on its own. Editors live in the UI ten hours a day. You'll make it feel instant on big projects and clear at a glance.

About the role

We're looking for a mid-level UI Software Engineer, our second front-end engineer, to build Wizard's user-facing features across C++ and Qt. You'll work with Jack Gardner, our Head of Product, who built much of the interface himself; your work frees him to run product. Wizard's interface is built primarily with Qt Widgets and custom-painted Qt components, with growing QML integration. Qt is the toolkit, not the filter. We care more about your eye. Most of your time is spent in the production codebase.

What you'll do

• Build the timeline, panels, and viewers in C++ and Qt, primarily Qt Widgets and custom-painted components, with QML where used.

• Make interactions feel instant on large projects: painting, caching, and responsiveness.

• Ship improvements from Story editors' feedback every week.

• Own moderately scoped features from implementation planning through testing, review, and release.

• Develop reusable widgets, controls, themes, and desktop interaction patterns, as the UI becomes modular on Wizard Headless.

• Debug across widget, painting, QML, and application-logic layers, and write tests.

What you bring

• Production C++: at least three years of professional C++ development, including at least one shipped desktop application. Qt experience isn’t required, but you’ll work in it every day, so expect to get fluent fast.

• Complex, stateful UI: interfaces connected to application state, data models, and services, not only forms or dashboards.

• Custom UI that stays fast: You’ve built custom-drawn controls or views in any toolkit (Qt, AppKit, JUCE, ImGui, a game engine’s UI) and kept them responsive with real data loads.

• Craft: a practical understanding of usability, interaction design, visual hierarchy, and consistency, plus the judgement to fill in the details a mock leaves out.

• Creative drive: You make things outside of work, whether films, music, games, art, or tools, and care how they look and feel. You’ll build software for artists, so it helps to be one.

• Video editing fluency: hands‑on experience with Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro, or similar creative applications.

Show us what you can do

We welcome different backgrounds. Evidence of a strong fit could include:

• Production interfaces you built in C++ and/or Qt, with your individual contribution made clear. Dense, interaction-heavy work like timelines, editors, or node graphs is a strong signal.

• Work on pro creative software at Blackmagic, Apple Pro Apps, Foundry (Nuke), Autodesk, Ableton, Maxon, or a company like them.

• Public source code isn't required; we care about what you built, the decisions you made, and how it worked for users.

Equivalent professional experience is valued in place of a specific degree. Nice to have: cross‑platform desktop work, Qt painting and QML profiling, custom rendering, media playback, accessibility, or localization.

About Wizard

Every 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.

Wizard 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.

Our 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.

Our 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.

Our team comes from Industrial Light & Magic, Netflix, Apple, Epic Games, Lucasfilm, Blizzard, and 2K. We work in person in San Francisco.