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Are You an Otaku? Then AnotherBall Wants YOU
Jesse Katsumata shares his journey working on AniLive, AnotherBall's VTuber streaming service, and how employees can feel comfortable being their true selves at work.
Jesse Katsumata, an engineer on the server side team at AnotherBall, says his company is looking for a certain highly specific qualification.
If you’re an engineer, and if you’re also an otaku and want to create a service for otaku, then AnotherBall is the place to be.
Jesse is currently working on AniLive, AnotherBall’s VTuber mobile streaming platform with built-in models. Unlike traditional streaming apps where video data is sent to the device, AniLive just sends the model’s motion data, allowing for a smooth viewing experience with minimal bandwidth. Streamers are encouraged to discuss anime, manga, games, and all things Otaku-related. AnotherBall’s mission is to “create mutual understandings beyond boundaries”, and with AniLive they bring together otaku from all over the globe.
“It’s mainly targeting the English audience,” Jesse explained. “There are already a lot of YouTubing and livestream services in Japan. . . . A lot of popular YouTubers started in Japan, and now it’s all over the world, but there aren’t enough platforms for English speakers to use when they want to just watch VTuber content, and also for streamers who want to become VTubers.
Recently Twitch has been kind of neglecting the VTubers and restricting how they look, so we want to be able to provide a platform for those who want to become a VTuber in the English-speaking world.
And since AniLive is a platform created by otaku, for otaku, having nerdy interests is practically a prerequisite to work there.
“Communication is a lot of fun,” said Jesse. “Basically everybody in the company is some sort of [nerd]. They like watching anime, listening to music, or playing video games.”
I feel like I have a lot more friends at AnotherBall because co-workers are more open about themselves.
“I mean, I don’t really care what people think,” Jesse told us, “because if I did care, I wouldn’t have shared this whole room.” Jesse’s room, visible in the background of the video call, is decorated with posters of popular VTubers. “I do this in every meeting, no matter which meeting I’m in, but it’s not true for everyone.
Some people are like, ‘Work is work and then private is private.’ I feel a lot of Japanese people are like that, and they kind of shy away or they don’t really talk about their personal life at work. That’s less of the case in our company [though], because we’re basically open to everyone, and everybody shares some common interests.
This is quite different from Jesse’s previous work experience, and not just because of the unique product. “I graduated as a computer science major back in college in the States,” Jesse said, “but in the States I wasn’t able to get an engineering job. My first job wasn’t an engineering job, and then I worked there for three years. Since I was a comp sci major I wanted to do some engineering work, but by then, it was really hard for me to get a job in the States without any experience.
“There was a time in Japan where people were using Twitter [now known as X] to get engineering jobs. Since I could speak Japanese, I decided to post my name there, and then I got picked up by one of the Japanese companies.”
Basically, it was easier to get an engineering job in Japan than in the States.
In fact, AnotherBall is the first company where Jesse speaks English regularly. “Even when I used to live in the States, I was working in a Japanese company and doing some translation and interpretation. So, I mean, I did use some English, but all my co-workers were Japanese. And then when I moved to Japan, the previous two jobs that I had were all in Japanese.”
So this is the first time I’m actually using English in my job, and it’s also the first time for me to work with people who are from other countries, because we have people from Brazil and the Philippines.
“The server side team is a globally remote team,” Jesse confirmed.
For those interested in working on AniLive, Jesse described the typical interview and hiring experience.
We don’t have LeetCode style interviewing. We usually just talk.
“I’m the one who usually interviews the server side engineers, but we try to see if our culture and our interests match,” he said. “I also provide them with some technical questions to make sure we’re on the same [page] with our tech stack and familiarity with the technology. It’s really hard nowadays to judge engineers’ ability, even with LeetCode style. . . . So we usually have a period to let them work part-time for a month-ish, and see if we match.
As a company, we want to judge if you have the right skillset and the matching culture [values], but as a person trying to come in, it’s also important for them to know if they actually like the company or not.
Jesse describes a results-driven environment that maximizes time zone differences, common to remote global teams. On the server side, they have eight engineers divided into two units, one of which Jesse leads on an informal basis.
“It’s up to the project manager to decide what feature goes on to the next version,” said Jesse. “And then from there, we engineers break down the tasks [and decide] what needs to be done in order to get that feature out there.”
Jesse is usually the one to assign work to his unit members. His priority is ensuring that, with employees operating in very different time zones, no one is left waiting around. “Managing people with different time zones is the challenging part, since it’s a new experience for me, so I’m still struggling to find the best way to deal with it. . . . I like to split up the tasks and give tasks to other people so that when I’m asleep, the other people in the opposite time zone still have something to work on.”
That being said, Jesse feels that ideally, “All the engineer members should manage themselves and be aware of the task deadlines and work as a team.”
Drawing on his previous tech lead experience, Jesse also utilizes his bilingualism to ensure that everyone remains on the same page. “There’s always a language barrier,” he said. “Some people are just not fluent in English. Some people can’t even speak Japanese. So I want to make sure that neither of them are having a bad or awkward time working on the team.”
I think that’s kind of my job as a bilingual, to make sure all the people working here have an easier time.
Each of the two server side units connects with a stand-up meeting daily, where they share their daily assignments, and the whole team joins in twice-a-week meetings meant to keep projects on track. “Right now we have [the daily] meeting at 9 a.m. Japan time,” Jesse explained, “[and we have a member] from Texas who has it at 6 or 7 p.m.
“Then we have another person from Brazil, which is the exact opposite [time zone], a 12 hour difference. So they have the meeting at 9 p.m. . . . It’s rough for people who are in the Philippines or Singapore. I think we have a one hour [time zone] difference, so they have to wake up at 8 a.m.”
While tricky to schedule, these regular check-ins help keep projects moving, even when new feature releases can sometimes be unpredictable.
“We’re trying to get new streamers to join our platform,” Jesse told us. “So if there’s some important feature for them, we tell them this feature is planned to be out at this time. But other than that, we don’t really say it in advance.
“The thing about mobile development is that, even if we get everything done, it’s up to Apple and Google whether to accept the update or not. Sometimes they would reject the update, and then we’d have to work on it or work around it. So we can’t really be sure when the new version is coming out.”
In addition to work-oriented meetings, AnotherBall’s 20 engineers meet regularly with the CTO to discuss their Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), which can often be quite personal. Jesse said that for his OKRs, “I kind of imagine where I will be in the next year.”
For small goals, like a one-month goal, I [say something] like, ‘This feature comes out within that time frame.’ But for a longer goal, like half a year or a year, I [say], ‘I want to be able to do this, or I want to be this kind of person. . . . Not a metric goal, but more of a vision of who I would be in that time.
“One of my goals is to have an easier time communicating with people. I feel like I’m accomplishing that. I hope I’m [also] giving people an easier time when there’s a language barrier.”
Jesse reiterated that AnotherBall is hiring at the time of writing. He encourages those who are interested in the company culture to apply.
If they’re interested in any otaku [thing], they would be free to talk about it, and the content that we’re creating is catered towards that, so you can be a part of that. . . . Basically, I feel like it’s important for even a developer or anyone on the team to be interested in the service that we’re making, in order to create a good service.
“Especially because we are a small company,” he added, “we need to be focused and be in a position where we share our mission and goals in order to get anywhere.”