Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has revealed his unconventional approach to hiring software engineers: skip the interviews and let candidates compete instead. Speaking on podcaster Lex Fridman’s show Tuesday, Durov explained that coding contests provide a superior method for identifying exceptional talent compared to standard recruitment processes.“If you want to create an ideal process for selecting the most qualified people for certain specific tasks you have in mind, what can be better than a competition?” Durov told Fridman, emphasising that this strategy aligns with his belief that competition drives progress.

Telegram hosts monthly contests to build elite 30-person engineering team

The messaging platform runs coding competitions every one to two months on its own custom-built platform. Winners gain the opportunity to join Telegram’s lean engineering team of approximately 30 developers. According to Durov, this approach eliminates the need for an HR department while ensuring candidates possess both technical excellence and genuine familiarity with the product.Durov prioritizes hiring engineers who already use Telegram, believing prior experience provides crucial understanding that newcomers lack. By promoting contests directly through Telegram, the company naturally attracts user-candidates.The strategy has proven lucrative for winners. In June, Durov announced a competition offering a $1 million annual salary for an Android developer position, with the challenge requiring contestants to implement specific animations in Telegram’s open-source app.Durov has employed this hiring method since 2007, during his tenure as CEO of Russian social network VK, before cofounding Telegram with his brother Nikolai in 2013. The contests serve dual purposes: recruiting top talent while crowdsourcing innovative solutions to real development challenges facing the platform.