I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Toptal (New Delhi) in May 2017
Interview
Interview process is designed to reject most of the candidates by making false allegations on their code. Not even google judge candidates based upon syntax. Most interviewers are rude and don't accept your answers or not willing to listen to you at all. Its all one sided interviews just made to fool candidates
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Write a code in c++ because I doubt you copied simple tree traversal code from internet as you're so dumb for tree traversals. Your code should compile in a single run otherwise you're rejected immediately.
I applied through other source. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Toptal in Apr 2021
Interview
First 10 minute's interview. Rejected for low level of English and poor communication. Put on hold for 6 months. Seriously? You go there and do the interview again, I do not have time. Forget it
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me a time you exceeded expectations? Are we still asking these questions? Stop it, please
I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Toptal (San Francisco, CA) in Mar 2021
Interview
I did a difficult online assignment, lots of questions for a really short amount of time.
P.S. the questions are not software dev related they were mostly about solving patterns and mathematical questions.
I applied online. I interviewed at Toptal in Dec 2018
Interview
This was easily the worst interview I have ever attended. I applied for the role, I got a fairly quick response telling me to schedule a call and I did. The interviewer came unto the call and after a very short convo, she said I have an African accent and she found it difficult understanding me. The most shocking bit of the call was that the lady in-question is African and from her accent you could tell she's not been away from Africa for long. I was so shocked and angry at the same time that I literally did not utter a word for the rest of the short call.
I have worked remotely for a client in the US for 6 months and before then I had worked for 2 years for a British company and they never complained about understanding me or anything like that.
I still cannot comprehend the logic behind posting a remote job offering to everybody all over the world, reviewing an African's application and asking them to make out time to meet with you only to expect a Western accent from them. It makes no sense and I only do not find this boxed way of thinking very unprofessional but completely disrespectful and intolerable.
I spoke to a couple of other people who went through the same process with Toptal and I got similar responses from them as well. I did not expect this from an elite organisation like Toptal. The good side of the story is that I am happy I found out how boxed folks over there are sooner than later because I couldn't have possibly forgiven myself if I ever worked for an organisation like this.