(Yicai Global) Nov. 1 -- Xiaomi may be offering an annual salary of CNY600,000 (USD94,000) as well as CNY1 million (USD156,000) in stock options to senior automotive engineers at the Chinese tech giant’s carmaking arm, according to an appointment letter purported to come from the division.

Monthly remuneration for manager-level engineers is CNY40,000 (USD6,250), plus performance-based annual bonuses, a screenshot of the letter recently circulating online showed. Forty percent of the stock options would be given after a year, with the remainder split into three equal parts and awarded at the following work anniversaries.

The letter’s authenticity is unverifiable as its content was incomplete, an insider at Xiaomi's vehicle arm told Yicai Global, adding that the salary for senior engineers was around that level, with some ‘tech gurus’ earning millions of yuan and tens of millions in stock options.

CNY600,000 is a relatively high annual salary for a manager-level engineer employed in China’s auto industry, a headhunter told Yicai Global. At leading auto joint ventures, such staff earn about CNY500,000 a year, while those with fewer work years under their belts make about CNY400,000, he said, adding that those at independent carmakers generally get less.

Based on the letter and the pay of Xiaomi's auto research and development staff that has already been made public, renumeration at the company is in the mid to upper range compared with other Chinese EV startups, the recruiter said.

CNY600,000 for a senior engineer is not particularly good in Shanghai, but the stock options are very attractive, he said. The offer was probably for a hardware systems engineer, as the monthly salary for such a position is between CNY50,000 and CNY70,000, he added.

“The fact that Xiaomi is apparently hiring engineering managers shows that it has already set up the organizational structure of the research and development center of its automotive arm, and the recruitment process of low-level employees will start soon,” the director at a carmaker’s R&D division said.

Xiaomi’s vehicle unit has already been registered and its first plant has been located in Beijing’s Yizhuang area, where 453 R&D staffers are already at work, Chairman Lei Jun said last month, adding that mass production will start by the first half of 2024.

The auto industry is a highly competitive jobs market. Insiders at various carmakers told Yicai Global that staff have quit to join Xiaomi and other EV startups. Yu Guo, former president of BAIC Bluepark New Energy Technology’s EV brand ArcFox, was recently reported to have joined Xiaomi.

In the first half, the number of jobs in China's new energy vehicle sector posted on recruitment platform Liepin jumped 94.5 percent from a year earlier and 60.1 percent from the same period in 2019.

The demand for talent in R&D autonomous driving and smart cockpit design almost doubled in the first six months compared with the same period of last year, Liepin’s data showed. Experts in perception algorithms, artificial intelligence and autonomous driving algorithms made up almost half of the top 10 most in demand positions.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione