A conceptual image of DeepSeek that has recently stunned global tech industry. Photo: VCG
In the fiercely competitive AI talent market, Hangzhou-based AI star DeepSeek has recently launched a major hiring spree on LinkedIn.com, attracting widespread attention.
The Chinese AI startup is looking to attract more talent from overseas, according to a Bloomberg report on Thursday. DeepSeek is ramping up its recruitment on the American-based business and employment-oriented social networking service LinkedIn.
According to LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky, the social media platform has seen a sharp increase in AI-related job posting – up sixfold in the past year, Bloomberg reported.
The Global Times found that DeepSeek posted 10 job listings on LinkedIn.com during the past week, its first listings in months. The jobs, posted in Chinese language along with their descriptions, included three roles focused on artificial general intelligence (AGI), as well as large language models’ intern jobs. The positions are based in Beijing and Hangzhou.
Similar job postings appeared on major Chinese recruitment sites, such as BOSS Zhipin and Zhilian Zhaopin. As of Thursday, on BOSS Zhipin, DeepSeek listed more than 40 job offerings for technology-related positions. The Global Times learned that the lowest salary listed by DeepSeek, for a client-side engineer, is 200,000 yuan per year.
Competition among tech firms for AI talent is now intensifying.
The competition has intensified further following DeepSeek released an update to its R1 reasoning model in late May, drawing growing attention from multiple media outlets, with some of them saying that the latest move could intensify competition with OpenAI.
Not only are AI-specific companies experiencing a surge in talent demand, but enterprises from various fields such as Huawei, ByteDance, Unitree, and Bilibili are also eager for AI talents, releasing job recruitment information with attractive salaries, media outlets reported.
An industry expert said that the recent rise in demand for AI talent reflects the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI). With the AI ecosystem changing rapidly, companies are waging an “all-out war” to secure talent who can implement services quickly and adapt to fast-paced changes.
“If you look at the traits valued by CEOs of major tech firms, they prefer talent who take initiative and adapt quickly to change,” Liu Gang, chief economist at the Chinese Institute of New Generation AI Development Strategies, told the Global Times. “Employers are now prioritizing practical skills such as Python, machine learning, data science, robotic process automation, and data visualization over formal degrees,” Liu said.
Liu added that the integration of AI into traditional industries is another major driver of talent demand. For instance, the finance sector is hiring machine learning engineers and data scientists to develop AI-driven trading algorithms and fraud detection systems. The healthcare sector is recruiting AI talent to build diagnostic algorithms and predictive patient analytics. Even retail and real estate firms are recruiting AI-skilled professionals to upgrade their operations.
A Shenzhen-based AI startup founder told the Global Times, “It is known that only a few team members have created the ‘o1’ and ‘deep research’ functions released by OpenAI. In these fields, skills are the first condition for recruitment rather than academic background and academic background.” From a business perspective, he said, even if it costs tens of millions to hire top developers, accelerating product roll-outs makes it worthwhile.
AI’s rapid development has sparked a surge in job-seeking interest. According to a report released by Chinese job-hunting platform Zhilian Zhaopin in February, the number of job seekers in the AI sector surged by 33.4 percent in the first week following the 2025 Chinese New Year holidays, making it the fastest-growing industry for job applications, the Economic Information Daily reported.
Meanwhile, a report by job platform Liepin.com, the salary for top-notch talents is considerable, with 30.97 percent of AI-related positions offering annual salaries above 500,000 yuan.
AI’s growing influence across industries is pushing up engineering salaries. The Financial Times reported that the typical annual salary of AI engineers has soared by 50 percent compared to 2022 to $3 million to $7 million, with top-tier talent earning more than $10 million.
Global Times