"Signing Bonus Before Day One, Plus $10,000 for Vacation"... Pay for 'This Type of Talent' Soars Amid Layoffs

U.S. AI Startup Serval Offers Hefty Signing Bonuses
Race to Hire AI Specialists and Developers Skilled at Using AI

As the U.S. tech industry continues to make massive job cuts, competition for AI-related talent is heating up instead. Some companies are offering signing bonuses worth tens of millions of won and even covering travel expenses to recruit developers.

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According to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Nov. 11 (local time), AI startup Serval offered a $30,000 signing bonus (about 40 million won) as it hired 100 engineers this fall.

When a candidate referred by an existing employee is hired, the referrer also receives $30,000. New hires are also offered vacation expenses worth $10,000 (about 13.3 million won). Carlos Lezama, Serval's head of talent acquisition, said the company needs "software engineers and AI implementation strategists," adding that major AI companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI are absorbing large numbers of such professionals.

AI Talent Commands Higher Pay Amid Wave of Layoffs

The U.S. tech industry is among the sectors with the largest job cuts this year, but some roles directly related to AI are seeing the opposite trend. As companies compete to secure specialists who can be put to work immediately, salaries and other forms of compensation are rising rapidly. Nela Richardson, chief economist at payroll company ADP, said, "Even in the tech industry, wages and employment are both increasing in the most specialized fields."

Frontend software engineer job posting in the San Francisco area. The salary is set at 266.2 million to 432.6 million won. Screenshot of the Serval website.

According to payroll data provider Payscale, the tech sector had the highest wage growth of any industry in the third quarter of this year, at 6.4%. It was followed by government (4.6%), architecture, engineering and design (4.3%), business services and consulting (4.1%), and manufacturing (4.0%).

By occupation, DevOps (development and operations automation) engineers saw the highest wage growth, at 16.5%, followed by customer support managers (9.5%), information security architects (5.1%), software developers (5.1%), and application engineers (5.0%).

"You Don't Have to Be an AI Model Developer"... Practical Skills Determine Pay

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However, the AI talent companies are looking for does not necessarily mean only experts capable of developing cutting-edge AI models themselves. Mohit Bende, CEO of engineering recruitment platform Karat, said, "You don't have to be someone who can build a frontier AI model," adding that "the value of software engineers with strong fundamentals who know how to use AI effectively is rising significantly."

Valentino Stoll, 42, an AI software engineer working in New Jersey, left a job in July where he was earning an annual salary of about $260,000 (about 346.6 million won) and moved to a smaller tech startup, where his salary actually increased. He was even promoted within a few months of joining. Saying that his experience applying AI to products has also been an asset in the job market, he said, "If you want to change jobs, you should look for ways to incorporate AI into the work you want to do."

Companies sometimes offer new hires higher salaries than those of existing employees to attract talent from outside. An analysis by salary information platform Levels.fyi of salary offers at major tech companies and startups found that, over the past year, the median base salary offered to newly hired software engineers was higher than that of existing employees at the same level. The gap was about 4% for entry-level positions and widened to as much as 17% at the most senior level.

Recruiters say companies are increasingly favoring candidates with hands-on experience using AI in their work over those who have merely studied AI. Jill Hunstant, CEO of San Francisco-area recruiting firm Hunstant & Co., said, "Companies would rather bring in people who have already gained experience at other firms than train someone new," adding, "Candidates are at a significant advantage if they can demonstrate practical experience using AI tools effectively."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.