Eighteen months ago, DeepSeek was a research project funded by a quant hedge fund. Today it is valued at $71 billion, operates the world's most-called AI model, and is trying to double its workforce — in a market where AI engineers with production experience are scarcer than H100 GPUs. For executive search firms like SunTzu Recruitment, the gap between DeepSeek's ambition and the available talent pool defines the next frontier of tech hiring in China.