Meta is ramping up its efforts to poach top-tier artificial intelligence talent, offering compensation packages reportedly stretching into the nine-figure range, as the battle for AI dominance intensifies among Big Tech giants.
But not everyone is rushing to join the frenzy.
Yangshun Tay, a 35-year-old software engineer based in Singapore, shared that Meta reached out just 12 hours after he posted on LinkedIn about receiving an offer from OpenAI. According to an interview published by BI, what caught him off guard wasn’t just the timing, but the fact that Meta knew exactly who he was, despite his having left the company more than two years ago.
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“I thought they didn’t realize I’d already worked there,” Tay said. “But they knew. They even referenced my past role.”
Tay, who spent over five years at Meta before founding GreatFrontEnd, a startup that helps software engineers build their skills, revealed that Meta’s outreach wasn’t a direct offer. He’d have to re-interview if he were to rejoin, given how long he’s been away. Still, the prompt interest underscores just how aggressively Meta is scouting for AI-aligned engineers, even those without a research background.
“I’m not an AI researcher. My work has mostly been in applied engineering,” Tay noted. “Even the OpenAI role I considered was about building tools like ChatGPT, not training models from scratch.”
Despite Meta’s recent push to hire high-profile AI experts and build credibility in the space, Tay isn’t sold on the company’s current trajectory in AI.
“I don’t think they’re leading the AI race right now,” he said. “They’ve hired a lot of big names, but I’m not bullish on Meta’s direction.”
Nine-Figure Compensation and a Talent War
Tay’s story reflects a broader shift in how Big Tech is approaching AI hiring. With rapid model development, constant benchmark races, and consumer tools like ChatGPT pushing the frontier, companies like Meta, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and others are in a race to recruit elite developers, often with staggeringly high compensation packages.
“Top AI engineers today are being treated like startup founders. The opportunity cost of being a regular employee is really high,” Tay said. “AI is moving so fast that building your own thing might be the better bet.”
He’s chosen to stay on the founder path, continuing to run GreatFrontEnd while keeping an eye out for new product ideas in the AI space. For Tay, the ability to experiment and ship independently outweighs the security of a salaried position, especially in such a fast-moving field.
Meta’s Hiring Push Amid Uneven Market
While competition for elite AI minds is red-hot, Tay acknowledged that not every engineer is benefiting.
“A lot of software engineers are still struggling to find jobs,” he said. “AI breakthroughs often come from just a handful of people—those at the very top. That’s why companies are willing to pay so much for them.”
This trend is especially true in the Bay Area and other tech hubs, where top talent circulates rapidly between companies.
“Even if Meta gets a breakthrough, that knowledge doesn’t stay locked up for long,” Tay added. “Everyone’s building models now—it’s an arms race.”
Meta has been on a hiring spree, pulling in key researchers and developers from other AI labs. While the company hasn’t confirmed specifics, industry watchers note its recent strategy of open-sourcing foundational models like LLaMA, courting top AI engineers, and investing heavily in compute infrastructure to catch up with rivals like OpenAI and Google.
Against this backdrop, OpenAI is fortifying its defenses—not just around its models, but its people. The company has become increasingly protective of its core talent, particularly engineers involved in debugging its frontier models, amid a growing wave of poaching attempts led by rivals like Meta.
In a revealing episode of the Before AGI podcast, OpenAI technical fellow Szymon Sidor underscored just how valued these engineers have become.
“Some of our most-prized employees,” Sidor began, referring to OpenAI’s model debuggers—only to abruptly pause as another voice quickly jumped in with a stern: “No names.” The exchange sparked laughter, but the deeper message was unmistakable.
From Corporates to Startups
Tay sees this era as uniquely favorable for founders and builders. While he was tempted by OpenAI’s offer, he ultimately declined, preferring to focus on independent ventures during this “once-in-a-generation” moment for AI.
He also acknowledged that his viral post about OpenAI was partly strategic: “It was marketing. I wanted to raise my profile. After that post, I got cold emails from all kinds of companies, not just the big names.”
AI Is Reshaping Work
Tay’s view is that AI is not just a hiring battleground—it’s already changing how teams function.
“AI is great at repetitive engineering tasks—implementing solutions that already exist. That shifts the value to creativity and innovation,” he said.
And that shift is accelerating as CEOs across industries are signaling workforce reductions due to AI adoption. Engineers without niche skills are increasingly at risk of displacement, while the few who drive breakthroughs are commanding outsize influence—and rewards.
For Tay, that’s exactly why he’s staying independent. He indicated that being part of someone else’s roadmap isn’t appealing to him right now. I’d rather be building things myself. The timing is too good to pass up.