Elon Musk’s xAI is hiring someone to make anime girls

“Fullstack Engineer – Waifus,” is the job title.

 By 

Tim Marcin

Tim Marcin

Associate Editor, Culture

Tim Marcin is an Associate Editor on the culture team at Mashable, where he mostly digs into the weird parts of the internet. You’ll also see some coverage of memes, tech, sports, trends, and the occasional hot take. You can find him on Bluesky (sometimes), Instagram (infrequently), or eating Buffalo wings (as often as possible).

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 on July 17, 2025

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Credit: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

In a bit of news that is in no way indicative of the direction our culture is heading, Elon Musk’s xAI is hiring an engineer dedicated to creating anime girls.

The company has a listing with the job title “Fullstack Engineer – Waifus.” A waifu is word used by anime fans refer to a female character that people view romantically. It’s basically a Japanese version of the English word “wife.” The listing said xAI is “looking for exceptional multimedia engineers and product thinkers who want to make Grok’s realtime avatar products the best in the world.” The pay range: $180,000-$440,000 per year.

Mashable Light Speed

The job listing comes on the heels of Musk’s Grok releasing its first avatars, which were an anime girl called Ani and a red panda called Rudi. As Mashable’s Stan Schroeder wrote, Ani is, by default, very flirtatious with users and can go full NSFW.

If the job listing is any indication, we can only expect more of the same from xAI moving forward.

Associate Editor, Culture

Tim Marcin is an Associate Editor on the culture team at Mashable, where he mostly digs into the weird parts of the internet. You’ll also see some coverage of memes, tech, sports, trends, and the occasional hot take. You can find him on Bluesky (sometimes), Instagram (infrequently), or eating Buffalo wings (as often as possible).

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