Toptal Blog

The Toptal Blog is the top hub for developers, designers, management consultants, 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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Ethereum Oracle Contracts: Setup and Orientation

Oracles are changing the way we view and create smart contracts. How do we implement them in Ethereum, using nothing but Solidity and standard dev tools?

In the first article of our three-part series, Toptal Blockchain Developer John R. Kosinski explains how to get started and compile a smart contract with oracles.

16-minute readContinue Reading
John R. Kosinski

John R. Kosinski

As a full-stack dev for nearly two decades, John’s worked with IoT, Blockchain, web, and mobile projects using C/C++, .NET, SQL, and JS.

Collusion: Nearby Device Networking with MultipeerConnectivity in iOS

Traditionally, connecting devices for peer-to-peer communications has been a tedious task: An application needs to discover what’s around it, open connections on both sides, and then maintain them as network infrastructure, connections, distances, etc. Realizing the difficulties inherent in these activities, in iOS 7 and macOS 10.10 Apple introduced its MultipeerConnectivity framework.

Join Toptal Freelance iOS Developer Ben Gottlieb as he explains what MultipeerConnectivity is, and teaches us how to use it.

9-minute readContinue Reading
Ben Gottlieb

Ben Gottlieb

Ben has been an iOS developer for the entire life of the platform and has worked on mobile devices for more than 20 years.

Saving Product X: A Design Thinking Case Study

Have you ever wondered if you can apply design thinking principles with a limited time and budget? If so, check out this in-depth Design Thinking use case, which details how Design Thinking helped a company to save its product.

16-minute readContinue Reading
Luciano Castro

Luciano Castro

Luciano is a business-driven manager with over 15 years of experience as a CTO and CEO in multinational companies and startups.

Exploring Excel’s Get & Transform Functionality

Hidden in Excel and Power BI is a powerful data analysis pack named Get & Transform (previously known as Power Query). It is an ETL pack for cleaning and sorting raw data from a range of input sources, such as CSV and text files. This tutorial demonstrates how to–quite literally– get and transform data in Excel, in ways that can help the data analyst save time and uncover more insight.

10-minute readContinue Reading
Ellen Su

Ellen Su

Ellen’s extensive experience in fixed income trading and portfolio management make her an unparalleled expert in analytics and modeling.

An Introductory Robot Programming Tutorial

Let’s face it, robots are cool. In this post, Toptal Engineer Nick McCrea provides a step-by-step, easy-to-follow tutorial (with code samples) that walks you through the process of building a basic autonomous mobile robot.

24-minute readContinue Reading
Nick McCrea

Nick McCrea

Nicholas is a professional software engineer with a passion for quality craftsmanship. He loves architecting and writing top-notch code.

Figma vs. Sketch vs. Axure: A Task-based Review

There are many UX design tools on the market, but their capabilities vary. This review examines the effectiveness of Sketch, Axure, and Figma with a task-based comparison.

9-minute readContinue Reading
Ben Kopf

Ben Kopf

Ben has 25 years of experience in UX, interaction, user research, and UI design. Ben thinks about what can be, not what is.

Briefing: The Data Warehouse

While often overlooked, the data warehouse enables companies to reveal valuable insights concealed within their vast data troves. In this article, domain expert Josip Saban shares foundational principles and applications that are essential knowledge for all modern managers.

5-minute readContinue Reading
Josip Šaban

Josip Šaban

With two Master’s degrees and having worked for the largest Slovenian enterprises, Josip is a veteran of Microsoft business/database tech.

Understanding the Nuances of Typeface Classification

Possibly with the exception of color, the typeface styles used in a design have a greater impact on the way a user perceives that design than virtually any other individual design element.

< 5-minute readContinue Reading
Cameron Chapman

Cameron Chapman

Cameron comes from a design background and is the author of two web design books: Color for Web Design and The Smashing Idea Book.

ERC20 Token Tutorial

The humble ERC20 token specification has become the de facto standard for Ethereum tokens. If you come across an Ethereum smart contract, chances are it’s ERC20-compliant.

In this guide, Toptal Freelance Ethereum Developer Gilad Haimov demonstrates how you can create and deploy your own ERC20 token in under an hour.

9-minute readContinue Reading
Gilad Haimov

Gilad Haimov

Gilad has 19+ years of Android experience in developing mobile, server-side, and communication systems.

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