China’s tech giants are paying 1 million yuan for a new kind of AI engineer
Chinese technology giants are offering annual pay packages approaching 1 million yuan (US$149,739) to attract artificial intelligence engineers who can turn AI models into commercial applications.
Companies including ByteDance, Tencent Holdings, and Alibaba Group Holding are intensifying their recruitment and training efforts for forward-deployed engineers (FDEs). These professionals work directly with customers to develop and integrate AI applications into business operations.
Demand for FDEs has soared, with job postings in China increasing by 1,523 percent in the first seven months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2025, according to data from domestic professional networking platform Maimai. This makes FDEs the fastest-growing AI technical role covered by the report.
The lucrative hiring posts reflect this demand. ByteDance has advertised FDE positions in its AI business offering monthly salaries between 35,000 yuan and 65,000 yuan, with a total potential annual compensation of up to 975,000 yuan, based on job postings on the Chinese recruitment platform Boss Zhipin.
In comparison, the average annual disposable income in China was only 43,377 yuan in 2025, according to official data.
Ant Digital Technologies, the technology arm of Ant Group, has offered monthly salaries ranging from 40,000 yuan to 60,000 yuan for business-facing FDEs, as per Boss Zhipin listings. Ant Group is a fintech affiliate of Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post.
Other postings have indicated that Tencent’s FDE-related positions offer between 30,000 yuan and 60,000 yuan per month, while Alibaba Cloud deployment engineering roles have advertised salaries of up to 50,000 yuan per month.
In a similar vein, US AI companies are also ramping up their recruitment efforts. Earlier in October 2025, Anthropic announced a US$100 million initiative to train 10,000 FDEs by the end of 2027.
However, the high salaries advertised do not necessarily reflect what most FDEs earn, according to George Wang, a senior human resources professional at a leading AI company in Beijing. He noted that the high salaries for some positions represent only a small part of the market, with most positions paying less.
Wang emphasized that there is still strong demand for “AI-native full-stack developers with experience building AI agents,” as companies reorganize their operations around this technology.
The competition for talent is prompting Chinese companies to develop their own FDE workforce. Earlier this year, Tencent Cloud introduced what it described as the industry’s first FDE certification, targeting partner engineers and developers working with its Agent Development Platform.
Beijing has also shown support for the profession. In late August 2025, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice encouraging firms to build FDE teams embedded at customer sites to help implement AI applications, while urging universities to cultivate relevant talent.
A Beijing-based engineer, known as Su, stated that the role has become increasingly valuable as businesses seek talent capable of bridging technical development and commercial needs. “We look for people who can quickly understand the needs of clients in different industries, choose suitable AI tools, and take a solution through to implementation,” said Su, who previously led an internal FDE team at a major Chinese internet company.
ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent did not respond to requests for comment.
Source: SCMP Tech (Asia)