DeepSeek builds new team to rival Claude Code, hiring researchers and engineers

Cui Tianyi, head of the DeepSeek Harness team, recently said the team is hiring researchers, engineers, and product managers to build a code agent product that competes with Anthropic's Claude Code. The team is new and very busy, with Cui interviewing daily. He clarified there's no rule against hiring foreigners, but candidates need to work in Chinese, similar to US firms requiring English. Insiders say the team focuses on automating coding tasks, showing China's growing AI competition in developer tools.