In the global competition for artificial intelligence, the battle for highly qualified specialists is intensifying.

According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta alone offers up to 100 million dollars as a sign-on bonus for outstanding AI engineers. The pressure on OpenAI is growing after several prominent employees recently left the company. Research Chief Mark Chen said internally that it feels "as if someone broke in and stole something from us." Particularly critical: Meta is specifically using the current break at OpenAI to make offers.

Although OpenAI offers a median compensation according to the Levels platform that exceeds that of Meta—with a range of $212,000 to $2.5 million annually—the turnover rates are increasing. At Meta, the packages range from $186,000 to $3.2 million. According to Harrison Clarke, total compensation for mid to senior researcher roles has almost doubled since 2022.

The competition is further fueled by Meta's failure with the LLM "Llama 4." CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded with investments amounting to 15 billion dollars in the data-labeling startup Scale AI and enlisted its co-founder Alexandr Wang for a new superintelligence team.

For many researchers, it's not just the salary that matters. According to headhunters, the reputation, freedom of publication, and thematic excellence of projects play an increasingly important role. Firas Sozan from Harrison Clarke warns: Those who land at Meta risk engaging in technical routine work instead of cutting-edge research.

European providers like Aleph Alpha and Hugging Face seize the opportunity. Their founders point to a growing number of qualified talents and an environment that places greater emphasis on ethical issues, sustainability, and societal benefit. Aleph Alpha, for instance, has increased its workforce sixfold compared to the previous year – without matching the Silicon Valley salary level.