
What's the deal with Toptal? - kecupochren
Hi. I&#x27;m a JS developer located in Eastern Europe. I&#x27;m happy in my current job and I do pretty well (~23 usd&#x2F;h). However, for quite some time now, I&#x27;ve been looking into Toptal.<p>From what I&#x27;ve gathered it&#x27;s not that glamorous for US developers, but in my case, I could double my salary.<p>On the other hand, reading about them online brings lot of different views. Some say they&#x27;re scam, some say they don&#x27;t care, some say it&#x27;s great. I&#x27;ve also seen lots of replies here on HN from people who just made an account to post a positive review.<p>So which one is it? Could anyone comment on them?<p>Thanks!
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baccheion
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.

