Contest-Based Engineering Recruitment

Pavel Durov's contest-based hiring approach for Telegram involves using engineering challenges to recruit top talent through contest.com. This unique recruitment strategy focuses on finding the best technical talent through demonstrated problem-solving ability rather than traditional hiring methods.

Key Points:

• Recruitment Process:

  • Uses contest.com platform to post engineering challenges
  • Candidates prove their skills by solving technical problems
  • Best performers receive job offers

• Company Structure:

  • Maintains small team of 30 full-time employees
  • No HR department
  • Pavel works directly with engineers and designers
  • Serves 1 billion users globally with minimal staff

• Benefits:

  • Identifies top technical talent through practical demonstration
  • Eliminates traditional hiring bureaucracy
  • Ensures high-quality engineering team
  • Maintains lean, efficient organization

This hiring approach has enabled Telegram to build and maintain a world-class messaging platform with an extremely efficient team structure.