linkedin-scraper-node

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LinkedIn profiles, companies, jobs and posts as JSON, in JavaScript. No LinkedIn login, no browser. Built on the Bright Data LinkedIn Scraper API.

Uses the Bright Data JavaScript SDK. Full API docs: LinkedIn Scraper API.

Also here: a one-command CLI for profiles, and the Bright Data CLI, which needs no JavaScript at all.

LinkedIn profile data is personal data. Use it within the law that applies to you: Bright Data compliance.

Quickstart

Node 20 or newer. This package is ESM, so use import, not require.

npm install @brightdata/sdk
export BRIGHTDATA_API_TOKEN=YOUR_API_KEY

Get a token from the Bright Data control panel. This SDK does not read a .env file; Node loads one for it with node --env-file=.env yourscript.mjs.

Or skip the token. Run npx -p @brightdata/cli bdata login once: it opens a browser, and from then on the SDK finds the stored credentials on its own, for you and for any coding agent working in that terminal. Agents cannot click through the login, so do it yourself first.

No account yet? Create one; new accounts get 5,000 free credits a month.

import { bdclient } from "@brightdata/sdk";

const client = new bdclient({ autoCreateZones: false });
const job = await client.scrape.linkedin.collectProfiles(
  ["https://www.linkedin.com/in/satyanadella/"],
  { async: true, includeErrors: true },
);
const result = await job.toResult({ pollTimeout: 600_000 });
if (!result.success) throw new Error(`${result.status}: ${result.error}`);
const [profile] = result.data;
console.log(profile.name, "|", profile.position);
console.log(profile.followers, "followers,", profile.connections, "connections");
await client.close();

Satya Nadella | Chairman and CEO at Microsoft
12172205 followers, 500 connections

Expect one to three minutes: the API runs a job and toResult waits for it. One credit per profile.

Three things in that snippet are not optional.

autoCreateZones: false stops the SDK creating zones on startup. The zones are for Web Unlocker and SERP, two other Bright Data products this scraper never touches. Creating one fails on accounts without a payment method.

includeErrors: true makes the API report a dead profile as a row. Without it the row is dropped and you get nothing.

async: true is what makes collectProfiles hand back a job rather than going through the synchronous endpoint, which gives up after a minute.

pollTimeout is milliseconds, not seconds. A number copied from a Python example expires before the first status check.

Or run it as a command

The command in this repo does the same for several profiles and writes one JSON file.

npm install -g github:brightdata/linkedin-scraper-node
linkedin-scraper satyanadella reidhoffman

Fetching 2 LinkedIn profiles: satyanadella, reidhoffman
One job for all of them, usually one to three minutes. One credit per profile.
asking  2 profiles...
got     satyanadella: 34 fields (Satya Nadella)
got     reidhoffman: 38 fields (Reid Hoffman)

Saved 2 of 2 profiles as JSON to linkedin.json

It takes a profile URL just as happily as the slug inside it, so linkedin-scraper https://www.linkedin.com/in/satyanadella/ does the same thing.

In a terminal the asking line is replaced by this, updating in place, so you can see it is working and how long it has been going:

⠹ 2 profiles 0:01:12

--out PATH   output file, default linkedin.json

Every profile you ask for goes into one job. The API bills per record, not per job, and a job takes one to three minutes whether it carries one URL or ten, so ten profiles cost the same wait as one.

Import it instead of running it, for ok and error per profile instead of raw rows. scrape never rejects for one bad profile; check ok before reading profile:

import { scrape } from "@brightdata/linkedin-scraper-node";

for (const outcome of await scrape(["satyanadella", "zz-not-a-real-profile-zz"])) {
  if (outcome.ok) {
    console.log(`${outcome.slug}: ${outcome.profile.name}`);
  } else {
    console.log(`${outcome.slug} failed: ${outcome.error}`);
  }
}

satyanadella: Satya Nadella
zz-not-a-real-profile-zz failed: The profile is hidden or private.

The rest of the API

The command covers the first row of the table below. The rest of the SDK's LinkedIn surface is the other rows, documented in the LinkedIn Scraper API docs. Every snippet below is complete and needs only @brightdata/sdk: paste it as is. Every one of them runs in Actions each Monday, a smaller check runs every other day, and the badge at the top is the latest result.

you have	want	call
a profile URL	that profile	collectProfiles([url], { async: true, includeErrors: true })
a first and last name	matching profiles	discoverProfiles([{ first_name, last_name }], …), see the note below
a company URL	that company	collectCompanies([url], { async: true, includeErrors: true })
a job URL	that job posting	collectJobs([url], { async: true, includeErrors: true })
a keyword and a location	matching job postings	discoverJobs([{ location, keyword }], …)
a post URL	that post	collectPosts([url], { async: true, includeErrors: true })
a profile URL	that person's posts	discoverUserPosts([{ url }], …)
a company URL	that company's posts	discoverCompanyPosts([{ url }], …)

All of them hang off client.scrape.linkedin.

discoverProfiles takes { first_name, last_name }, not a URL. It is people search by name. This README documents that it exists and does not demonstrate it against a real person.

There is no example here built on a pinned job URL. A posting closes, and a snippet pinned to it would turn red the week that happened. Discover jobs by keyword and location instead, as the table shows.

Every one of these is an asynchronous job. The API triggers it, the SDK polls, and the call returns when it is ready. That is why a call takes one to three minutes. The API's synchronous endpoint, 20 URLs and a one-minute limit, is raw HTTP only.

The four short names, profiles, companies, jobs and posts, trigger, poll and fetch in one call and hand back a ScrapeResult. The collect and discover names hand back a ScrapeJob you poll yourself. Only that second group can pass includeErrors. A run that must tell a dead profile from an empty one uses it.

Several profiles, one job

An array of URLs is one job, not one per profile.

import { bdclient } from "@brightdata/sdk";

const client = new bdclient({ autoCreateZones: false });
const job = await client.scrape.linkedin.collectProfiles(
  [
    "https://www.linkedin.com/in/satyanadella/",
    "https://www.linkedin.com/in/reidhoffman/",
  ],
  { async: true, includeErrors: true },
);
const result = await job.toResult({ pollTimeout: 600_000 });
if (!result.success) throw new Error(`${result.status}: ${result.error}`);
for (const profile of result.data) {
  console.log(profile.name, "|", profile.city ?? "no city", "|", profile.followers, "followers");
}
await client.close();

Reid Hoffman | United States | 2792708 followers
Satya Nadella | Redmond, Washington, United States | 12172206 followers

Rows come back in no guaranteed order. Match them to what you asked for with input_url, not by position.

Trigger now, fetch later

For anything bigger than a few profiles, do not block a process for an hour. Trigger, keep the snapshot id, fetch when ready. Snapshots stay downloadable for 30 days.

import { bdclient } from "@brightdata/sdk";

const client = new bdclient({ autoCreateZones: false });
const job = await client.scrape.linkedin.collectProfiles(
  ["https://www.linkedin.com/in/satyanadella/"],
  { async: true, includeErrors: true },
);
console.log("snapshot:", job.snapshotId);
await job.wait({ pollInterval: 5_000, pollTimeout: 600_000 });
console.log("status:", await job.status());
const [record] = await job.fetch();
console.log("fetched:", record.name, "|", record.current_company_name);
await client.close();

snapshot: sd_mu52fz8odk79uf5we
status: ready
fetched: Satya Nadella | Microsoft

A ScrapeJob also has download() to write the snapshot to disk and cancel() to stop it.

A company

import { bdclient } from "@brightdata/sdk";

const client = new bdclient({ autoCreateZones: false });
const job = await client.scrape.linkedin.collectCompanies(
  ["https://www.linkedin.com/company/bright-data/"],
  { async: true, includeErrors: true },
);
const result = await job.toResult({ pollTimeout: 600_000 });
if (!result.success) throw new Error(`${result.status}: ${result.error}`);
const [company] = result.data;
console.log(company.name, "|", company.employees_in_linkedin, "employees on LinkedIn");
await client.close();

Bright Data | 407 employees on LinkedIn

Jobs by keyword and location

location is required. keyword, company, time_range, job_type, experience_level and remote are optional.

import { bdclient } from "@brightdata/sdk";

const client = new bdclient({ autoCreateZones: false });
const job = await client.scrape.linkedin.discoverJobs(
  [{ location: "London", keyword: "data engineer", time_range: "Past week" }],
  { async: true, includeErrors: true, limitPerInput: 5 },
);
const result = await job.toResult({ pollTimeout: 900_000 });
if (!result.success) throw new Error(`${result.status}: ${result.error}`);
for (const posting of result.data.slice(0, 3)) {
  console.log(posting.job_title, "|", posting.company_name, "|", posting.job_location);
}
await client.close();

Data Engineer | FDJ UNITED | London Area, United Kingdom
Senior Data Engineer | Firstup | London, England, United Kingdom
Data Engineer | General Atlantic | London Area, United Kingdom

Job discovery bills one credit per row, and a broad filter matches thousands of postings. limitPerInput caps it. The call above returned exactly 5.

Pass async: true alongside it. Without that key the option is stripped before the request, with no error, and the job runs uncapped (sdk-js#36). The SDK's DiscoverOptions type says to omit async, so the typed call is the one that costs you.

The data

The fields most people want from a profile:

name  position  city  current_company_name  followers  connections  experience

The code hardcodes no field list. Whatever the API returns lands in result.data, and in the command's file.

The API marks 8 of these fields as personal data, with pii: true in the schema: id, name, about, url, input_url, linkedin_id, first_name and last_name. Read that flag rather than keeping your own list.

All 47 fields, with type and description

Regenerated every day from the dataset schema, via client.datasets.linkedinProfiles.getMetadata(), so it cannot go stale. A profile carries the fields that apply to it: the sample file has 32 of these 47, plus timestamp and input, which the schema does not list.

field	type	description
id	text	Personal data. A unique identifier for the person's LinkedIn profile
name	text	Personal data. Profile name
city	text	Geographical location of the user
country_code	text	Geographical location of the user
position	text	The current job title or position of the profile
about	text	Personal data. A concise profile summary. In some cases, only a truncated version with "…" is displayed on the website, and this is the version we capture
posts	array	Contains information related to the user's last LinkedIn posts. It typically includes the post title, created date, URL link to the post, etc.
groups	array	The LinkedIn groups that the profile is a part of
current_company	object	Provides information about the user's current professional position. It typically includes the company name, the user's job title, the company ID, and the industry or sector to which the company belongs
experience	array	Contains information about user's professional history. It typically includes the user's job title, length of time the user held the position, the geographic location of the company, the start and end date, the company name, URL link to the company profile, etc.
url	url	Personal data. URL that link directly to the LinkedIn profile
people_also_viewed	array	Provides a list of LinkedIn profiles that users who have viewed the user's profile, have viewed these as well
educations_details	text	Provides information about the user's educational background
education	array	Provides information about the user's educational background. It typically includes the degree, the start and end year, the filed, etc.
recommendations_count	number	A numeric count of the total number of recommendations that the user has received
avatar	url	URL that link to the profile picture of the LinkedIn user
courses	array	Contains information about courses or educational programs that the user has undertaken
languages	array	Contains information about the user's proficiency in different languages
certifications	array	Licenses & Certifications
recommendations	array	Recommendations that the user has received from their connections or colleagues on LinkedIn
volunteer_experience	array	Contains information related to the user's volunteer work
followers	number	How many users/ companies following the profile
connections	number	How many connections the profile has
current_company_company_id	text	The id of the latest/current company of the profile
current_company_name	text	The name of the latest/current company of the profile
publications	array	Published works or presentations
patents	array	Patents filed or granted
projects	array	Professional or academic projects
organizations	array	Memberships in professional organizations
location	text	Geographical location of the user
input_url	url	Personal data. The URL that was entered when starting the scraping process
linkedin_id	text	Personal data. LinkedIn profile identifier
activity	array	Any activity the user has regarding posts
linkedin_num_id	text	Numeric LinkedIn profile ID
banner_image	url	Banner image
honors_and_awards	array	Awards and recognitions received
similar_profiles	array	Profiles similar to the current one
default_avatar	boolean	Is the avatar picture the default avatar empty picture
memorialized_account	boolean	Boolean indicating if the account is memorialized
bio_links	array	External links added to the bio
first_name	text	Personal data. First name of the user
last_name	text	Personal data. Last name of the user
urn_id	text	The Uniform Resource Name (URN) used by LinkedIn
urn	text	Uniform Resource Name
influencer	boolean	Indicator if the profile marked as influencer
fsd_profile_id	text	FSD profile ID
backfilled_columns	object	Indicates whether sticky columns were backfilled. Keys are column names and values are true/false.

The start of a real output file, from linkedin-scraper satyanadella

{
  "generated_at": "2026-09-17T05:07:02.996Z",
  "profiles": [
    {
      "slug": "satyanadella",
      "profile": {
        "id": "satyanadella",
        "name": "Satya Nadella",
        "city": "Redmond, Washington, United States",
        "country_code": "US",
        "position": "Chairman and CEO at Microsoft",
        "about": "As chairman and CEO of Microsoft, I define my mission and that of my company as empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.",
        "posts": [
          {
            "title": "How do we build a frontier intelligence ecosystem?",
            "attribution": "Great to be back at Microsoft Build today. For us, it is not about any one piece of technology or even the platform.",
            "img": "https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D5612AQEiPOCznzusVw/article-cover_image-shrink_720_1280/B56ZnaEmAPHAAI-/0/1760300263776?e=2147483647&v=beta&t=wFogtGsELbNXfbXZIw37bNUzyYGF8CNcMpj-BMIKqpI",
            "link": "https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-do-we-build-frontier-intelligence-ecosystem-satya-nadella-73jhc",
            "created_at": "2026-06-02T00:00:00.000Z",
  ...

The whole file, one profile with every field, is examples/sample_output.json.

When it fails

you see	what it means
API token required but not found.	Exit 2, before any request. Set the token.
failed slug: ...	Exit 1. No such profile, usually a typo in the slug.
failed slug: the API returned no row for this profile	Exit 1. The job came back without a row for that input. Run it again.
failed slug: Polling timed out after 605s for sd_...	Exit 1. A request gives up after 600 seconds. A slow hour at the API does this. Run it again.

Any failure exits 1, so a run is safe to gate a script on.

From the SDK, the same conditions look like this:

you see	what it means
AuthenticationError: No API token found.	No token anywhere: not in the options, the environment, or the CLI login.
APIError with status 401	The token is set but wrong.
result.success is false, result.status is "timeout"	The SDK gave up waiting. Raise pollTimeout, in milliseconds, or run it again.
a row in result.data with an error key	The API's answer for one input, when you asked for includeErrors. The other rows are fine.
zero rows where you expected an error	You did not pass includeErrors: true, so the API dropped the row that would have explained it.

Coding agents

No JavaScript, nothing installed. Paste both lines; the first opens a browser once, or use bdata login --device over SSH and in CI:

npx -p @brightdata/cli bdata login
npx -p @brightdata/cli bdata pipelines linkedin_person_profile "https://www.linkedin.com/in/satyanadella/"

bdata pipelines list prints every type. The LinkedIn ones are linkedin_person_profile, linkedin_company_profile, linkedin_job_listings, linkedin_posts and linkedin_people_search. Each takes URLs, prints JSON, and costs one credit per record.

npx skills add brightdata/skills teaches Claude Code, Cursor and Codex these commands and the docs, so plain language works afterwards. Full guide: Bright Data for your coding agent.

No terminal, for a hosted assistant? The Bright Data MCP server has LinkedIn tools in its social group, which is off unless you ask for it:

https://mcp.brightdata.com/mcp?token=YOUR_API_TOKEN&groups=social

An agent can also open the account itself, no signup form: agent registration. Everything else Bright Data connects to, from LangChain to Zapier and n8n: integrations.

Support

Bugs in this repo: open an issue, and CONTRIBUTING.md says what to put in it. Anything about the API, your account or your credits: Bright Data support.

License

MIT.