I hired a developer for an 8 week project. I paid weekly and total was $24,259. (https://photos.app.goo.gl/arVKP6cJQW1Vb5sv6) The communication from Curcio Sobrinho, my developer they chose for me, 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. Once he was out for over a week on vacation and said he'd be out of contact, but not to worry he was still working on 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 a client 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 test .apk files in Android Studio, they don't work (one won't even open due to many errors). The backend, which is PHP (Laravel), was untouched though he said he had made numerous changes including "it's in php I had to totally rewrite it". MySql was to be jettisoned in favor of Firebase/firestore, and although initial Firebase authentication was set up and firestore collections were created, no actual integration occurred and the apps and backend still relied on MySql. So many other issues. Basically he did a bit of work each week, perhaps an hour or two ($200?) enough to commit an update to Gitlab with a creative name that provided evidence of his "work". Certainly not the 224 hours I was billed for: (https://photos.app.goo.gl/arVKP6cJQW1Vb5sv6) Though I'm a novice programmer (mostly web/cms/small pwas etc in js) I know nothing about native app development, server architecture, etc. I had to go on faith this person was really working. In our initial conversations I knew I was out of my depth, yet in subsequent weeks I urged him to give me feedback on the progress. I just assumed he was shy or a "leave me alone I got this" sort. He seemed very smart and I had hopes it was the latter and that, if anything, I'd be amazed by his work. Omar Landaverry at Toptal, over several emails, said basically I was on my own. He stated they finished their investigation and were going to, begrudgingly, "allow" Curcio to finish the project (this was the rushed 24 hour next day delivery) and implied that I was lucky Toptal wasn't deciding to charge me for the additional weeks (8 more of them, so about double, almost $50k) that Curcio kept asking for to get the project done. Well, 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. I must say, the frustration of all this has made me buckle down over the past couple of months and learn. I know a lot more about Firebase, modular api's, bundlers (I use webpack), android studio, Laravel, etc. I've let other areas suffer to devote this time, but I don't want to be at the mercy of a company like Toptal ever again. It's also why I've rewritten this to note that I can see "some" work (1-2 hrs/wk perhaps) was in fact done. The genius of Curcio's plan or scam, based on Toptal's business model, was also that I was not able to leave a review of Curcio, since this has to be done a week or so after the project cutoff date. Since Curcio strung me along with "I need one more week", for two months, before I raised the issue with Toptal his review window had closed. 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. My advice: steer clear of Toptal. If you *must* use Toptal, just steer clear of this developer. read more

Toptal - Employment Agencies Near Me - San Francisco, California

Usually I don't leave reviews, hired top tal to create a program and after 30,000 dollars they did not finish and they asked for more money, project never went anywhere, never mind even got finished, Another note after one programmer failed to complete the project they brought on another programmer, and that PR Grammer failed to complete the project. read more

This is a total scam. They get you to fill out an extremely lengthy application, and, then, send you an email that says they don't REALLY have referral opportunities, but they've added you to a "wait list." Don't be fooled. Don't waste your time. These people are not ethical, and they are not acting in good faith. read more

Toptal is a recruiting company with 3 offices: DE, CA and NY. I received a message from Adna Vreto who is not even based in any of the above but clearly across the pond in Sarajevo, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (just check LinkedIn). Aside from the fact she had no clue about my area of expertise, she even had the guts to tell me to schedule a time to chat about a job she did not even send! Basically, there is no job title, no location and the area is completely unrelated. Toptal clearly recruits lousy wanna-be professionals who can't even tell the difference between apples and oranges. 1 star is being generous for wasting my time. read more

I could not be more pleased! I recently concluded my first engagement with a Toptal engineer. Being a developer myself, I was looking for some very specific technical know-how in the developer that I was wanted to hire. I was looking to augment my team and Toptal seemed to be the best way to do that. My primary contact (recruiter) with Toptal was Anna Chiara Bellini (http://www.toptal.com/resume/anna-chiara-bellini). She was very insightful and courteous. I tried to be as detailed as possible to ensure the best fit. Anna did a great job at listening to my description of my project and the type of developer that I wanted to hire. Anna was very confident that we would be a great fit and she said that she should have some developers for me to choose from in about two weeks. At first, I was a little skeptical. It all seemed to good to be true. Sure enough, within two weeks, Anna had sent me a couple developers to consider for an interview. I figured with my detailed specifications utilizing bleeding edge technology that my options would be slim. So, the small number of developers initially sent to me did not discourage me at all. In fact, I was happy that I did not have to try to narrow down a large list. I scheduled a Skype interview with one of the developers. I was very pleased with his knowledge, skills, past projects, and interest in my project. Based on that interview, I decided to hire Xiaolei Liu (http://www.toptal.com/resume/xiaolei-liu). Since this was my first time hiring a developer, my plan was to start with a full-time two week sprint. I wanted to be gracious to Xiaolei and allow him to work during his normal business hours. The time difference actually worked out quite well. We would communicate via Skype at least twice per day. I would try to catch him at the beginning of his day to ensure he knew what to do and answer any questions that he may have. I would also chat with him at the end of his day to get an update of progress and find out if he needed anything else to continue with the objectives. We used several online collaboration tools to stay in-sync. It was very cool to wake in the morning and have a large list of items completed. I will use Toptal again. In fact, I've already started planning my next sprint. It will likely go longer and possibly use more than one developer at a time. This is a great service and is exactly what I needed. I am very impressed with the quality, responsiveness, and technical know-how that I experienced with Toptal. If you are considering Toptal, I suggest that you do like I did, start with one or two weeks either full-time or part-time. Be sure to have a good idea of the exact type of developer that you are looking for. The more you define in your project the better results you will see. I would be happy to refer anyone looking to hire a developer to Toptal (https://www.toptal.com/#unite-10x-devs). read more

I've used Toptal for 3 years and I'm thrilled with their service. They saved my team on several high-end projects that needed the top talent. Previously, I made the mistake of hiring developers who were not vetted and it ended in disaster. When I reached out to Toptal they connected me with an iOS engineer, Magento developer, and Drupal developer within seven days, and they each nailed their projects. Our clients were ecstatic. To date, we've spent well over $100,000 and made all my money back and a bit more. read more

I have had the pleasure of being involved with Toptal since August of 2013. Toptal is an amazing company because it solves one of the biggest challenges of our time, helping innovators create technology that improves our lives. Toptal provides world class software engineers, designers as well as other professionals, to companies and perfectly matches their needs to help them execute rapidly. I believe one of the biggest barriers to innovation is talent and finding the right people to help teams execute. Toptal was built from the ground up to solve this challenge and to do so by accessing the best people from anywhere on the planet. The founders and the team at Toptal really understand the challenges of this talent search and also how to leverage their global expertise and proprietary resources to find the best people for any team. The Company prides itself on helping companies find the right people and build teams from the ground up. The beauty of using Toptal is that they are totally flexible; you can hire one engineer, hourly, part time or full time or hire as many as you need and build up a full team. The company in its DNA cares deeply about the success of any client engagement and provides a fully risk free trial so that anyone hiring an engineer can work with an engineer first and then decide if they are fully happy before moving on. I highly recommend anyone who is interested in hiring to connect with Toptal because finding the best people is hard, and Toptal makes this process seamless. Please feel free to reach out to me if you would like more info on my experiences with Toptal. I am happy to provide further information and give you more advice on this. I know you will be happy with your decision to work with Toptal. read more

Pretty much the same experience as the previous reviews written. Really sad, the initial contact went great, and I was quite sold, hoping they could help take care of some of my needs. Filled out my billing information and whatnot, my project was forwarded to a Sr. Engineer "Alvaro Oliveira" of some sort, but never herd anything back. I would ask my contact "Scott Ritter" , he said he would find out the issue, would not hear back from him. A week later, the same email, the same response. While I was requesting a part time engineer for perhaps 40-60hrs over a couple weeks, this could have been turned into lengthy and fruitful project for them had I been happy with the work. Instead I felt strung along and ignored. I figured the least they could do was discuss why the lack of interest, or help direct me to a more fitting company, but alas, just ignored. read more

Been working in web software wold for nearly 20 years. I've worked with dozens of programmers and engineers ( and YES there's a difference between the two). I was outsourcing in India and Africa before people understood what outsourcing was! I've only come across a few topnotch engineers that were able to deliver projects on time, within budget and in scope. I tried Toptal because I was curious and their guarantee was too good to be true. I went through the sign up process and was initially taken back by the cost (double what I was paying existing engineers). However, I thought if they worked faster, or had fewer defects, the money was well spent. Well, I got a great developer and he jumped right into my project (existing system) and plowed through the projects I sent him. He delivered great quality code with few defects. Best of all, his projects were close to budget and in scope. Very happy with the developer and overall process, looking forward to using Toptal for future projects! read more

We hired a Toptal developer to extend the search function on our site at Mixergy, and the process was great. Toptal's first recommendation was perfect. Though a relatively small project, Stratos (our Toptal developer) brought a tremendous amount of insight to our codebase, our UI/UX, and our larger operation. It was a pleasure working with him, and we'll definitely use Toptal in the future. read more

I am an active developer working for TopTal, and I'm going to give my review talking about the good things for an Engineer to be working for Toptal; but first let me address something else: I think many of the reviews here are from people who didn't actually get to be a Client of TopTal, rather they applied and were not accepted. See, Toptal has a very strict filtering process for their Engineers (around 4% of them actually pass the interviews), but they also do a good job filtering Companies; and this fact is one of the very best attributes for an Engineer like myself working for a company. If they didn't do any filtering for Clients a swell as they do it for developers, then me, as a developer would have to deal with crappy Clients, I would eventually start heating my job. My experience as a developer was, and still is, just amazing. For starting I'm surrounded by smart people who makes you improve at every project you take. Another good thing is the projects we have available (related to my previous comment about the past reviews here), many of them are start-ups companies, and this for the developer only means one thing: insane improvement of skills; and I'm not talking about any start-up, most of the clients are start ups that are looking to apply the newest trends in technology on their company. I've worked 8 years of my live in big companies like IBM, HP, and Verizon; and I can guarantee one thing: you are never going to improve yourself as a developer in one of those big companies as you are going to do it in a start-up that's looking to enhance their value through software. Another great thing is the freedom you get from freelancing, but any other freelancer can say this, however Toptal offers more added value; If you are a developer then you are a priority, they know you are the most valuable asset of their business and you can notice it. They have an active team of people looking for matching you as a developer with a project, and the first person they'll address it is going to be you; so If somebody in the matching team has a project that can be a good fit for your skills, then you are going to be consulted about the project and only if you like it they'll proceed sending your profile to the client. The rates are very good and you have the flexibility to change them accordingly to your criteria, and the payment is always on time. Lastly I want to say that I've been working for two years now with Toptal and I can't say enough good things about the company form the developer's perspective. I totally recommend it. read more

I used Toptal to hire a programmer, while that particular programmer was a mistake for me, they have a lot of programmers to choose from and some are undoubtedly amazing and worth your trust. Make sure you do your due diligence and check your programmers references as you would a normal employee hire because that is the net effect of using a service like this. They have staff that can help. I did not do that. Toptal customer service was responsive to my concerns about the programmer I hired. Oddly that programmer had mentioned skipping some of the things Toptal recommended in the workflow process which should have been a red flag for me. If I used them again I would insist that the Toptal workflow system be followed by any programmer I used. Use the Toptal system completely and you will probably have good results. read more

When I was searching for a developer I came across a couple of talent agencies along with TopTal that seem to fit the bill of the type of engagement I wanted to get in. I researched each one as much as I could and did my due diligence before deciding on what company I would potentially loose some time with. Sadly all of the agencies I came across have some sort of negative reviews along with some positive ones which made it a bit difficult to chose one, but I was in a bind and decided to gamble. In the end, I chose toptal because of their presentation and decided to take a chance with their team. My initial interaction with the sales lead for my territory was a positive one, friendly guy and understood my needs. He explained how the company works, billing structure and and what my next steps would be if I decided to proceed. My second interaction with toptal was with the head hunter that would find my developer. This meeting through me off a bit because after I explained what I was looking for, his estimates on how long it would take the developer that I hire to complete these tasks, were a bit off. I am a developer myself and knew exactly what I was looking for and based on his estimate my project would have cost 4x what it really did. However; even though I was a bit skeptical, I decided to proceed. Over the next 24 - 48 hours, I received two resumes and decided to interview the developers resume which reflected what I was searching for. I had never interviewed over Skype which was a bit weird for me, but the interview went extremely well. I asked key questions that were relevant to my project and he hit the nail on the head with each answer. After putting my initial deposit and starting a trial with the developer, he quickly exceeded my expectations. The engagement went so well, that within a week (not the month I was told) he completed all the task given and gave me daily updates every step of the way. I enjoyed working with this developer so much, that after the initial project was complete, I brought him on board for an additional few projects my team is actively working on and again he exceeded my expectations daily. Being in the tech world and dealing with the high and lows of our industry, not much impresses or surprises me but toptal definitely has. I plan to continue using their service as my primary talent pool for my current and future projects. If all their developers are as well versed and talented as the one with whom I am currently working, this place definitely chose the correct name for their company. I really am dealing with top talent and most importantly, I am not using my own time on finding and filtering out potential developers. read more

These guys are great, the backend and front end developer duo they hooked us up with were dynamic and dynamite. Professional, diligent, efficient, allowed us to get our our redesign done quickly and affordably. read more

Hiring all my contractors through TopTal. They are awesome!!!

you cannot trust this company. I hired a freelancer and then ended the contract 2 months ago. Today, they charged my card over $2,000 dollars despite having told me my account had been closed. read more

I was not happy with Toptal's customer service. They were simply unresponsive to my project needs. Also, they're constantly going with the pushy sales speak and it really put me off. Overall, I would definitely not use Toptal again nor would I recommend them to anyone else. read more

The folks at Toptal are awesome. We move super fast on our open source software projects and sometimes need to quickly pull in top caliber developers to get things done really fast. Toptal has delivered. They've helped us with a number of projects, including software development kits, Docker packages and Red Hat OpenShift cartridges. Their service is great and developers are sharp. Check out their blog too, very relevant to developers wanting to get practical info on new technologies. Highly recommended! read more

My initial contact with this company was so terrible I could not even proceed with hiring. I had to request a meeting more than once when trying to get an initial quote. The contact was extremely rude and unpleasant to deal with. I actually felt insulted.... I hope this is not the norm for this company. My contact could use some etiquette lessons. read more

If you are buying from toptal: the top 3% claim is an arbitrary claim, don't be suckered in and conduct your own interviews. Just because 3% of people pass through the screening process, does not mean the top 3% pass through. As far as we can tell, it might as well be an arbitrary 3%. Furthermore, the interview process has a handful of technical flaws and false claims. There is absolutely no behavioural or attitude based interviewing. The interviews are conducted by other freelancers, who have a vested interest in keeping the community small. And more than half the people we've come into contact with had difficulties with spoken English. There are also signs of "reputation management" (i.e. false reviews) and incentives given to the members of toptal to create favourable blog entries (to boost search engine rankings and generate web traffic). I'm sure there are talented people in the network, but unless you know what you're doing, you'll end up paying premium prices for ordinary work. If you are not a technical leader, hire a real consultant, local or online, to find you talent. You'll end up paying less. read more

Having seen lots of positive reviews, which we now suspect are instigated by Toptal themselves, we decided to give them a try. We tried to recruit for a couple of projects and throughout the process we found Toptal reminiscent of pushy salesmen, self-interested, intimidating and attempting to bill as much as possible whilst doing as little as possible. Their developers wouldn't bother to log their hours on our timekeeping system, despite being asked to and agreeding to do so from the start and reminded several times. Hours would be plucked from thin air and billed. The 10 day trial is misleading. We were told to make a decision after 5 days, impossible given developers were unprepared to start the project, one spending days to instal the php development environment on his local machine at our cost and the other having done a few hours here and there every day whilst working full time on other projects and completing Toptal recruitment tasks with our project coming in last - leaving him exhausted an unable to complete anything but the most trivial of tasks. Overall poor experience that added significant delays to our projects - our clients were most unhappy with the results as were the other developers who had to review the work that was done. Ask lots of questions before you use these guys - as you would of used car salesmen. read more

I was looking for a Node.js developer to rebuild our site, which was originally built on PHP, and since I had very bad experiences with sites such as Freelancer before, I decided to test Toptal. After I signed up, they asked me to explain what I needed to do with my site and within 2 days I received the first candidate. At that point I realized that I needed someone with full-stack capabilities, not just a Node.js developer, since my site needed a complete refactoring. Alvaro and I worked together again, rewriting the specifications of the job, and the next day, they found me another candidate. He was perfect for my needs. I'm extremely satisified with the results so far. The whole experience has been very professional.I would have lost a lot of money and time if I hadn't used Toptal to find the best developer for this job. I recommend Toptal for everyone that needs a serious developer in a short period of time. read more

My company has been utilizing Toptal for the the past 2 years, in which time we have been able to find exceptional on demand engineering talent. We often recommend Toptal when there is a need for an engineer that is to the standards you would expect to find in Silicon Valley engineering teams. read more