Toptal

At Toptal, the community of fellow developers is one of my most valuable resources for peer reviews and discussion. I'm able to focus on my deepest area of expertise, because I know I can count on Toptal designers, project managers, and other professionals to provide me with the best possible support in other areas of my projects. I also enjoy the simplicity and security of being paired with great clients, without having to run my own small business.

I'm using Toptal as a freelancer for 1 year. Compared to other freelancing platforms, they offer a lot of help to the freelancer to get a job. You can there a lot of high-quality clients and interesting projects. They also help with setting the rates, days off etc.

Somebody could argue, that Toptal offers less flexibility as you cannot discuss the rates with your client directly and that Toptal is not transparent as they are not disclosing the rates they charge the client. On the other hand, you don't have to discuss business details with your client and can focus just on doing your job.

I requested my e-commerce shopify site be migrated to WooCommerce. I was of the opinion that this would be a $500 - to $700 job. That wk 3 weeks of billing ago with no end in site. Currently I owe $16,300 after the $500 deposit I prepaid.

When I joined the platform, it was great you would have matches reach out constantly, and there were plenty of jobs posted regularly.

June 2023 is an entirely different situation. The jobs listed are often already introduced to the client or filled with candidates.

The rates are not even half of what they used to be. Toptal used to be top talent, not rates that compete with sites like Upwork. When the issues are posted in Slack channels, the talent coordinators take comments privately, then lock the thread and, in most cases, close down the feedback Slack channels entirely.

A couple of things may be the cause:
In light of the recent layoffs across the tech industry, there may be more talent on the network than there are jobs.

In addition, there are lower-cost talent and lower-cost jobs - potentially, Toptal's commission markup is pushing this down too
No one is championing design work with our salespeople and clients. Very few jobs for more senior/experienced designers are posted these days!

The only solution I see is to apply if you want but diversify and leverage other freelance networks, personal, etc.

I hope it's not too late to bring the platform back, it's not what it used to be even six months ago, and that's a shame.

I hired react developer with $120 hour the job he did is the same t find freelancer in other platform with $40 hour so this is too expansive.

I hired a developer for an 8 week project. I paid weekly and total was $24,259.

The communication from Curcio J Sobrinho, my developer from Brazil, was very light (over skype) each week. I'd often check in and ask if he had any questions or needed anything. Always it was "nope, doing good." I started to wonder if he was doing anything and/or really understood the project.

At the end of our agreed-upon time, 8 weeks, he asked for "one additional week, no charge", which I gave. A week later this happened again, then again, then again...

8 weeks after the 8 week deadline, not wanting to irritate him by asking "are you even doing anything?", I emailed Toptal and asked what one should do in a situation like this.

Their response was to open an investigation, which ticked off the developer, who sloppily "finished the project" in 24 hours, sent me.apk files, and said "since you involved Toptal, this ends my work and our communication".

Upon testing the.apk files, they don't work. Opening the repository in Android Studio results in numerous errors.

Omar Landaverry at Toptal, over several emails, said basically I was on my own. He stated they "allowed" Curcio to finish the project (the hurried 24 hour delivery) and implied I was lucky Toptal didn't decide to charge me for the additional 8 weeks.

I now have a bunch of modified code to turn over to a new dev at a different agency to see if they want to work with it or start from scratch.

Toptal Director of Engineering Ariel Roitman, and my Account Manager Mitch Penrod were quite pleasant and did a good job kicking things off for me. But all downhill after that.

If you are a freelance software developer, Toptal is the best platform. My overall experience at Toptal as a developer has been excellent. It's not just a job marketplace, Toptal is your recruiter. Toptal staff will quickly match you up with their clients and make sure you get the job fitting your area of expertise. Now it's even possible to plan a trip and just go – I can work from wherever I want! Joining Toptal was the best decision of my life!