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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 fo

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.