DeepSeek is hiring for a job in product management and design.
It’s a major shift from the startup’s focus on AI model research.
The rush to hire product talent mirrors a broader trend in the US.
DeepSeek, the Chinese startup that rattled the AI industry earlier this year, is hiring for a product role that illustrates the company’s shift from research to commercialization.
In a job notice posted Tuesday on its official WeChat account, DeepSeek said it is looking to fill a “product and design” position on its teams in Beijing and Hangzhou. It is unclear from the notice if the job refers to a single role or multiple positions.
The Hangzhou-based firm labeled the job notice “urgent.” The company wrote that it wants people to help create the “next generation of intelligent product experience” centered on large language models.
Candidates are expected to have product management experience and be proficient in product and visual design, the notice said.
DeepSeek did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
DeepSeek is also hiring a chief financial officer and chief operating officer — jobs not labeled urgent. The company is expanding its research and engineering teams, according to other listings on its WeChat account.
The move marks a major shift for the company, which has been focused on fundamental AI model research. Last month, DeepSeek released an upgraded version of its open-source V3 large language model, boosting its reasoning and coding capabilities.
Founded in 2023 by Chinese entrepreneur Liang Wenfeng, DeepSeek made headlines and disrupted markets in January after unveiling its low-cost reasoning model, R1. The startup claims R1 can rival top competitors like OpenAI’s GPT-4 — but at a fraction of the cost.
An analyst told Business Insider earlier this month that DeepSeek’s latest models — especially the reasoning-focused R1 and R2 set to launch later this month or in May — mark a “significant inflection point” in China’s AI ambitions.
“These models not only match the best-in-class performance globally, but are also open-sourced under the most permissive MIT License,” said Wei Sun, the principal analyst for AI at Counterpoint Research.
“That changes the game,” she added.
Unlike flagship models in the US, which are typically closed-sourced and monetized through APIs or enterprise licensing, DeepSeek’s models like R1 and V3 are free for anyone to download, modify, and integrate.
DeepSeek has been quiet about the progress of its next-generation R2 model.
