4 ms·

Whether they are malicious or not, I cannot say. But anecdotally, are they a time-waster? Absolutely. I took their generalist test and scored perfect. It wa

by z9znz 4y ago

Whether they are malicious or not, I cannot say. But anecdotally, are they a time-waster? Absolutely. I took their generalist test and scored perfect. It was actually not so hard, but it tested some language things (a couple/few languages), some Unix things, SQL, etc. It was right up my alley. After completing the 30? min test, I got an email saying they were enthusiastic about me and would like to continue the process. I think the process was to become an interviewer; I forget now. Time passed... weeks, and then months. I emailed them and got nothing back. Then I checked Glassdoor (YMMV). There were a lot of negative stories about internal politics, gender issues, leadership problems, "insane" bad manager stories, etc. I don't know how Glassdoor works, but perhaps it was all lies; or perhaps it was very true; perhaps it has been erased (pay to play). Nonetheless, I parked them in the corner of my mind behind Toptal.

pcthrowaway 4y ago
> Then I checked Glassdoor (YMMV). There were a lot of negative stories about internal politics, gender issues, leadership problems, "insane" bad manager stories, etc. I don't know how Glassdoor works, but perhaps it was all lies; or perhaps it was very true; perhaps it has been erased (pay to play). Are we looking at the same Triplebyte? Their reviews on Glassdoor are pretty good edit: There are some nasty ones further back, the latest being Feb 2020
- scarmig 4y ago
  Glassdoor isn't really trustworthy: companies can pay it to nuke bad reviews.
- z9znz 4y ago
  Another thing we can do, especially on HN (but also for those of you who may be in Cali where you actually meet a lot of humans in this space) is to ask, "Have I ever met a happy Toptal consultant?" Has anyone here on HN?
  - pcthrowaway 4y ago
    I'm not really sure where Toptal fits into this. Triplebyte is not a consultant agency
    - z9znz 4y ago
      Sorry, the Toptal mention in my original post was not necessary. My experience with both companies was a waste of time and a disappointment, with similar characteristics along the way. I group them in the category of companies that has an attractive proposition but turns out to be much less lovely once known better.
  - throwaway81523 4y ago
    Toptal is consulting? I hadn't heard that before. I know they were notorious for long unpaid take-homes, so I skipped them. They claimed a pass rate of 3.5% but I figured that reflected the low percentage of visitors gullible or desperate enough to do the huge take-home.
42e6e8c8-f7b8-4 4y ago
I had a silly interview sequence with Toptal. Aced first interview. Was told "that's a record for solving that".. so, got to do a live, not take-home test for the second interview. Was clearly within 3 minutes of finishing up the last bits on the test suite on the solution for a 2 hour long test when the buzzer rang. Nope, no grace -- you clearly haven't proved yourself. You have to do the take-home ( A 4 day window for a take-home test ... which means, you need put in 40 hours!) I told them "no thanks".
- z9znz 4y ago
  For Toptal, I progressed through the initial interview, the two timed algorithm challenges, and faced the human-observed algorithm challenge. I passed the first of two tests with him, and on the second test I realized at 17 minutes out of 20 minutes that my approach was totally not going to work for the complete problem set. So at that point, no matter what I did, I was out. I didn't even get the "privilege" of doing the 40 hour take home project (which culminated in a formal business presentation that some people reportely failed despite turning in a polished project". Later I found complaints of Toptal members that they were pressured to provide low wage offers to get gigs. Overall it felt like perhaps an ernest initial effort to make a better system and a quality consulting firm, but it got perverted into a heartless profit machine. I'm glad I didn't progress to the 40 hour take-home stage.

by z9znz 4y ago

pcthrowaway 4y ago

> Then I checked Glassdoor (YMMV). There were a lot of negative stories about internal politics, gender issues, leadership problems, "insane" bad manager stories, etc. I don't know how Glassdoor works, but perhaps it was all lies; or perhaps it was very true; perhaps it has been erased (pay to play). Are we looking at the same Triplebyte? Their reviews on Glassdoor are pretty good edit: There are some nasty ones further back, the latest being Feb 2020

scarmig 4y ago
Glassdoor isn't really trustworthy: companies can pay it to nuke bad reviews.
z9znz 4y ago
Another thing we can do, especially on HN (but also for those of you who may be in Cali where you actually meet a lot of humans in this space) is to ask, "Have I ever met a happy Toptal consultant?" Has anyone here on HN?
- pcthrowaway 4y ago
  I'm not really sure where Toptal fits into this. Triplebyte is not a consultant agency
  - z9znz 4y ago
    Sorry, the Toptal mention in my original post was not necessary. My experience with both companies was a waste of time and a disappointment, with similar characteristics along the way. I group them in the category of companies that has an attractive proposition but turns out to be much less lovely once known better.
- throwaway81523 4y ago
  Toptal is consulting? I hadn't heard that before. I know they were notorious for long unpaid take-homes, so I skipped them. They claimed a pass rate of 3.5% but I figured that reflected the low percentage of visitors gullible or desperate enough to do the huge take-home.

42e6e8c8-f7b8-4 4y ago

I had a silly interview sequence with Toptal. Aced first interview. Was told "that's a record for solving that".. so, got to do a live, not take-home test for the second interview. Was clearly within 3 minutes of finishing up the last bits on the test suite on the solution for a 2 hour long test when the buzzer rang. Nope, no grace -- you clearly haven't proved yourself. You have to do the take-home ( A 4 day window for a take-home test ... which means, you need put in 40 hours!) I told them "no thanks".

z9znz 4y ago
For Toptal, I progressed through the initial interview, the two timed algorithm challenges, and faced the human-observed algorithm challenge. I passed the first of two tests with him, and on the second test I realized at 17 minutes out of 20 minutes that my approach was totally not going to work for the complete problem set. So at that point, no matter what I did, I was out. I didn't even get the "privilege" of doing the 40 hour take home project (which culminated in a formal business presentation that some people reportely failed despite turning in a polished project". Later I found complaints of Toptal members that they were pressured to provide low wage offers to get gigs. Overall it felt like perhaps an ernest initial effort to make a better system and a quality consulting firm, but it got perverted into a heartless profit machine. I'm glad I didn't progress to the 40 hour take-home stage.