What's the deal with Toptal?

2 points by kecupochren 9y ago ↗ HN

Hi. I'm a JS developer located in Eastern Europe. I'm happy in my current job and I do pretty well (~23 usd/h). However, for quite some time now, I've been looking into Toptal.

From what I've gathered it's not that glamorous for US developers, but in my case, I could double my salary.

On the other hand, reading about them online brings lot of different views. Some say they're scam, some say they don't care, some say it's great. I've also seen lots of replies here on HN from people who just made an account to post a positive review.

So which one is it? Could anyone comment on them?

Thanks!

1 comment

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baccheion 9y ago ↗

It seems they're bad if the hourly rate you get is lower than what you expect/want. Otherwise, it seems like the sort of thing that you can look into if you're strongly interested (go through the process, see what it's like, see if there are any problems, etc), then back away from if it seems it's not working out.

What caught my attention when I heard about them was how heavy-handed they were in promoting/maintaining their brand (positive reviews magically appearing, BS/fake comments, etc). While it could just be tasteless marketing/PR and brand management, it could also be suggestive of slimy, untrustworthy, full of it, etc.