TikTok owner ByteDance continues its aggressive push in gaming with plans for 1,000 new hires in the coming year, targeting university students
- An advertisement released Monday shows ByteDance wants to fill 700 business-related positions and 200 technical positions in gaming
- The social media company has been slowly building up its gaming clout, emulating Tencent’s rise in the industry
TikTok maker ByteDance is once again looking to level up in gaming, listing close to 1,000 new gaming jobs in the coming year. The new recruitment drive continues ByteDance’s aggressive push into gaming, but analysts say the company’s gaming division is still too small to take on Chinese gaming giants Tencent and NetEase.
According to a new recruitment advertisement released on Monday, which targets university students, ByteDance is looking to fill 700 business-related positions and more than 200 technical positions with its growing gaming arm. The jobs will mainly fall under the company’s marquee gaming studio Zhaoxi Guangnian Information Technology, which has offices spread across Beijing, Hangzhou and Shanghai.
ByteDance’s moves to boost its gaming clout in recent months have been interpreted as the company looking to follow in Tencent Holdings’ footsteps by inducing millions of social media users to become paying gamers.
ByteDance’s most aggressive moves include poaching top gaming talent from other Chinese companies. Most notably, the company snagged Jason Fung, the former senior director of global e-sports at Alibaba, who started as ByteDance’s global head of content in June. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post .
For now, though, ByteDance remains a relatively small player in China’s gaming industry and has yet to find its footing, analysts say.
Liao Xuhua, a gaming analyst at the Beijing-based research firm Analysys International, said that despite recent hires, ByteDance likely has fewer than 2,000 people working on games.