A hydraulic engineer by profession, Li worked in his early career as a technician and administrator in the national ministry of water works, the Yellow River Commission, and in Heilongjiang province.

He was transferred to Anhui in 2015 to serve as deputy party chief before becoming acting governor in 2016.

He spent most of his career in the water works system, as the assistant to the chief engineer, then the deputy director of the Yellow River commission, then chief engineer of the national Ministry of Waterworks.

[1] In March 2011, he was named Vice Minister of Water Works and chairman of the Yellow River Commission; he stayed on the post until August 2015, when he was named deputy party chief of Anhui.

[citation needed] His elevation confirmed trends that the senior Communist Party leadership was again showing preference for engineering and technical backgrounds over lifelong apparatchiks.