An aerial view of Tesla's factory in Shanghai in August Photo: VCG

US electric carmaker Tesla is hiring people for vital engineering roles in Shanghai for its Gigafactory 3 as CEO Elon Musk tweeted about "a major engineering team in China" and his strategy of attracting the best brains in China by "supporting original engineering."

Analysts said the move could mean Tesla can foresee a tough talent war in the coming age of new-generation cars. 

The company updated its job listings through its official WeChat account on Tuesday to include posts that will form a factory firmware team to develop programmable hardware for both the factory and its cars.

The latest move in human resources came as the company rushed to roll out the first cars so it can kick off production at the end of the year. Its Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai's Lingang passed a government inspection at end-August that's required before it can start production.

Tesla is building a major engineering team in China, including a heavy focus on software/firmware for factories and cars, Musk said on his Twitter account on Tuesday.

In a series of tweets and replies, Musk disclosed that the programming language of the potential recruits will be mostly C/C++, Python and SQL.

Musk even spelled out some of his motifs in one tweet by saying that "this includes original engineering of new factory processes & cars. Great engineers will only join if original engineering is supported, not just localization."

"The war for interdisciplinary talent for the new-generation of connected cars will be very tough," said Zeng Zhiling, an analyst at Shanghai-based consultancy LMC Automotives. 

In a job description posted on recruiting platform liepin.com, Tesla describes the role of a firmware provisioning integration engineer to be, "as part of a team, at the center of developing high-quality software that's critical to Tesla's future. Concrete duties include interfacing with multiple teams on triaging issues at the company's factory in Fremont, California and developing tools used internally and supporting the integration of our Infotainment hardware in current and future versions."

Other jobs listed on its WeChat account include technicians, quality controllers and safety guards.

The company also plans to interview candidates at an upcoming job fair on Thursday.