Culture of fear and stagnation - Senior Software Developer Toptal Employee Review

1.0
1 Apr 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Pay and time off are good. Contact with certain new technologies also helps to keep things interesting.

Cons

Focus on engineering excellence is minimal; you have to fight for it. Work pressure is high, and there's an assumption that things "just" take at most a few days to deliver, no matter the complexity. You must be a generalist, jumping from one ticket to another without deepening your knowledge about any stack. Management at all levels fears the CEO and does not allow sincere conversations on Slack. If you start a meaningful thread about an important topic, someone will interrupt it and say it should happen over Zoom (probably out of fear the CEO or middle management lurks in the channel). Contrary opinions are not welcome, and it got some people fired in the last layoffs. Overall not a culture of improvement.

Explore other reviews about Toptal

5.0
28 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

1. Excellent Pricing 2. Geneue Big and Global Clients 3. Pricing at your Choice 4. Top Class Payment System 5. Job Matcher who listen to you when and where required. 6. Always Real Job not a Job where person working as Freelancer to some international client and post job which you do during your parttime.

Cons

I don't find any Cons for TopTal Freelancer Platform

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Toptal Response
3w
Thank you for your positive feedback. We appreciate you taking the time to share your experience.
1.0
1 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

None. Avoid. This is a sinking ship.

Cons

As others have mentioned, the leadership of Toptal is very poor. Constant changes of direction, unstable leaders, a product with tons of competition. They also have extremely high turnover. Even if you get a job here, you'll be looking again in under a year.

3
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Toptal Response
3w
Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention, as your input helps us improve.
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