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The Toptal Blog is the top hub for developers, designers, finance experts, executives, and entrepreneurs, featuring key technology updates, tutorials, freelancer resources, and management insights.

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Toptal core team members share their experience, expertise, and perspectives on the Toptal Edge Blog

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Web Scraping with a Headless Browser: A Puppeteer Tutorial

In this article, Toptal Freelance JavaScript Developer Nick Chikovani shows how easy it is to perform web scraping using a headless browser. Specifically, he provides a Puppeteer tutorial, going through a few examples of how to control Google Chrome to take screenshots and gather structured data.

10 minute readContinue Reading
Nick Chikovani

Nick Chikovani

With more than six years of experience working as a developer and team lead, Nick has a passion for robust, scalable and clean code design.

Design Problem Statements – What They Are and How to Frame Them

Even exciting product ideas can flop without an understanding of the user problem to solve. A design problem statement is an essential step in the design process for creating products that truly matter.

11 minute readContinue Reading
Jordan DeVos

Jordan DeVos

Jordan’s expertise spans across brand strategy, service design, and UX. She works with organizations to help strengthen teams and innovate.

What’s My Return on Investment and How Do I Calculate It?

Finding out your return on investment from a project can become a subjective process with the myriad of returns measures and formulas that exist. This overview provides a breakdown and explanation of what type of return you need to measure and how to calculate it. With further guidance on how to use returns data to guide objective decision making.

16 minute readContinue Reading
David Bradshaw

David Bradshaw

David is an expert in planning asset acquisitions, managing projects of up to $100m across the financial, real estate and consumer space.

Creating a UI Style Guide for Better UX

A consistent UI leads to a better UX. But with so many moving parts in modern user interfaces, how can UI designers be sure they’re staying true to a digital product’s look and feel?

8 minute readContinue Reading
Micah Bowers

Micah Bowers

Micah helps businesses craft meaningful engagement through branding, illustration, and design.

How to Approach Machine Learning Problems

How do you approach machine learning problems? Are neural networks the answer to nearly every challenge you may encounter?

In this article, Toptal Freelance Python Developer Peter Hussami explains the basic approach to machine learning problems and points out where neural may fall short.

8 minute readContinue Reading
Peter Hussami

Peter Hussami

Peter’s rare math-modeling expertise includes audio and sensor analysis, ID verification, NPL, scheduling, routing, and credit scoring.

Hot Module Replacement in Redux

Hot module replacement is one of the most useful features offered by Webpack. It allows all kinds of modules, including JSON, CSS, and JS files, to be updated at runtime without needing a full refresh.

In this article, Toptal Freelance JavaScript Developer Shaojiang Cai demonstrates how to use Hot Module Replacement in Redux.

5 minute readContinue Reading
Shaojiang Cai

Shaojiang Cai

Shaojiang is a veteran front-end developer, skilled in JavaScript technologies. He’s also a GitHub developer and StackOverflow reviewer.

Biotech Valuation Idiosyncrasies and Best Practices

Biotech companies with little to no revenue can still be worth billions. Consider the most prominent 2017 biotech M&A deal when Gilead bought Kite Pharma for almost $12 billion. At the time of the deal, Kite had over $600 million in accumulated deficit, but it also had a pipeline of CAR-T cell therapies, which treat cancer. This article examines how to value such pipelines. It also focuses on the risk-adjusted NPV valuation methodology, portfolios of multiple drug candidates, and how value is impacted by the characteristics of the investor or acquirer.

22 minute readContinue Reading
Raphael Rottgen, CFA FRM

Raphael Rottgen, CFA FRM

Raphael is a partner at a crypto hedge fund. Prior, he founded and exited a fintech company, and worked as a banker and equities investor.

How to Create a Sketch Style Guide, Library, and UI Kit

Sketch is a valuable, time-saving resource for any designer’s toolbox. Though not every designer chooses to do so, creating style guides in Sketch can make it even more of a time-saver.

7 minute readContinue Reading
Yvette Solorzano

Yvette Solorzano

Yvette has experience in print, web, branding, and UX design. She has a minimal, clean aesthetic while pushing creative boundaries.

Building an ASP.NET Web API With ASP.NET Core

ASP.NET Core is a leaner and more modular redesign of ASP.NET 4.x.

In this article, Toptal Freelance ASP.NET Developer Damir Imangulov shows how to build a robust RESTful API using ASP.NET, EF Core, AutoMapper, and XUnit.

21 minute readContinue Reading
Damir Imangulov

Damir Imangulov

Damir is a hard-working architect, and experienced full-stack developer experienced in .NET, .NET Core, and front-end technologies.

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